Crush Me
by ostranenie
(suggested watching: Crushworthy by Big Poppa E)
How would it feel like?
She closed her eyes. Breathed. Leaned back on her hands and tilted her head up. The sun was warm on her face and the wind was cool on her hair, and beneath her palms the grass was wet from a drizzle some morning ago she couldn't recall.
Her skirt was probably stained now.
She sighed. Raised her knees to her chin and wrapped her arms around herself. There, she just transferred the stains from her palms to her back. There, she just hid her face from the sun and left her hair to the wind. There, she just hugged herself.
Her heart ached still.
How would it feel like?
"What."
She was too out of it to be startled, too out of it to even look up and address the lackluster question. She wanted to be alone for a change with her silly thoughts and silly wants and silly sadness, and he was rubbing her silliness to her face with his mere presence, rubbing how low she had fallen to her face by hovering, smart and handsome and perfect on her shriveled, pathetic self.
It's not fair.
And so she didn't say anything, tired stupid from their fights and almost fights and make-believe fights, because it was always a fight with him and right now, all she wanted was—
All she wanted was—
"How does it feel?" she asked in a breath of weakness. She finally glanced up and he was already making a place to sit beside her, uncaring of the still-wet grass now staking its claim on his pristine slacks. She stretched her legs in front of her, careless with her hands carefully on her lap, her eyes tracing a vein that would maybe lead to her heart—
Would it help, if I write with my left?
—until her eyes moved to the hand near hers. Up to his arm. His face.
His bored dark eyes.
His eyes were dark and bored and she clenched both her fists, reminded of the question hanging in the air like fog at dawn—angry at her mouth, her thoughts, angry at her weakness and him who had to be there, him of all people why him, why him—angry at herself above all because she was Uzumaki Naruto and she wasn't supposed to be thinking of hugs and veins and hearts and left hands, wasn't supposed to be feeling silly, feeling pathetic, feeling—feeling these things.
Angry angry angry because she was—
"Forget it—!"
—lonely lonely lonely.
She shot up to leave—furious red cheeks, raging blue eyes—and hissed with pain when she was abruptly jerked down. She twisted her trapped wrist, cursing, and almost fell ass over head when the same wrist was suddenly freed and all that cushioned her was air.
"The fuck's up with you?!"
"You're being an idiot," was the smooth answer. She bristled at the insult—why did she put up with this cold cold asshole?—and made another attempt to stand. An audibly exhaled breath stilled her and this time, she could hear the irritation coloring the previous white void of his voice. "I'm just a genius, not a telepath."
"You're such a great person, aren't you," she almost snarled, her intent dripping all over the wet ground. "So humble too. I wouldn't have known you a genius if someone hadn't told me. And a telepath to boo—"
Her eyes widened.
"Oh."
She slapped a hand over her eyes, loudly, embarrassed grin crooking her lips. She snorted in disbelief at herself and used the same hand to scratch the back of her head—she was the idiot here and she deserved to be called one right then.
"Well yeah, you're not a telepath. You're not that awesome," she belatedly agreed, no hint of apology in her tone or her words, all her sorry's contained in the sincerity of the nudge her shoulder gave his. He nudged back with gruff acceptance and she went on, hearing his unspoken question, trying the best she could to answer, "It's just that… I really want to know. Y'know?"
Her last word had come out softer and perhaps, it was enough to induce more patience from him. "What is it?" he asked, and there was no boredom in his eyes this time, she knew—she didn't have to look into them—because there were things she just knew about him as if she had known him all her life.
And it was just months ago, really, that she came to know Uchiha Sasuke, months ago since they met and fought and hung out and never stopped doing so. He was neighbor-classmate rival-friend, and she hardly knew him in truth but sometimes, in sudden moments of soul-mates and kindred-spirits and maybe-meant-to-bes, she knew him with her eyes and her skin and her fists and her heart.
And sometimes, in the instances when her inner thoughts drifted to him, she believed she knew him best and she had never been so sure in her life.
But this was not one of those times at the same time it was—she didn't even know herself today but somehow she knew him better and at the same time, how could she profess to know him better when she didn't understand herself today?—so she looked up to him even when it was hard to, and faltered in her confusion and laid her eyes on the smooth curve of his cheekbone instead.
"How's it—" she started, haltingly, unsure of how to ask but wanting to, needing to, don't laugh don't laugh please don't laugh, "How's it feel when—when someone—"
It was clearly teasing, the echo to her burden, and something within her sank like a stone on water, "Someone...?"
She huffed and turned away, annoyed, cursing the heat on her cheeks, the speed of her heartbeat, the soaring within her at the quiet laugh at her expense because he laughed so rarely and it was a damned nice laugh, so there. "When someone crushes on you, you asshole!" she yelled.
Her eyes rounded belatedly in shock. Her breath suddenly came too short, too fast—she was shaky and she clenched her trembling fists, charged with electricity and half-afraid that she would burst from white-hot jolts running haywire beneath her skin. She was chilly and boiling and the sun was too warm, the wind too cold, and the grass was too wet and she found solace in the truth of the raindrops in each blade—something could douse the flames if she erupted in a blaze, something could melt the frost if she hardened into ice.
And the silence was too loud. Too loud and heavy, and dark, and she was suspended within it, caught within the silence of a time fraught with meaning, heart in her throat and wings in her chest and she couldn't move, dammit, couldn't run away from her words and her thoughts and the boy beside her shifting, snorting—
"You're the only one who has come near enough to crush on me, dobe."
She blinked in bewilderment, startled by how everything grounded to a stop with his response. She had to run it through her head a couple more times before the words began to make sense, had to run it another time before she understood how he meant those words to be misunderstood.
"Teme!"
Beneath the blue fire and brimstone of her eyes was the amusement he didn't even hide in the half-smile lifting a corner of his mouth. She glared harder. A part of her had little trouble admiring how the devilish little quirk improved his already pleasing features. Most of her was annoyed and a little bit hurt—she had thrown herself out there even if she didn't plan to, why couldn't he catch her and help her sort things out?
"You know what I mean, stop being difficult!" she added with a growl.
He nodded with a thoughtful mien, infernal half-smile still in place. "Aa, that's your life purpose, not mine. Suman, suman."
She yelled to cover the sting. "Yarou!"
"Na, stop offending my ears."
Scowled to hide the pain."Bakayarou Sasuke-teme!"
"Usuratonkachi Naruto-dobe."
Sprang up to kick the melancholy wrapping around her frame. "Answer the fucking question already!"
Her friend rolled his eyes and straightened up, his hand coming up to push her frustrated self away from his. She settled down, rolling her own eyes, muttering nonsensical insults as she reclaimed the peace of her previous seat and ignored how her pretension stabbed her inside. With a last huff she leaned back, swallowed down the irritating feelings and squared her shoulders, then turned to him in expectant silence.
He shrugged in response. "I don't know."
Her mouth opened—
"B—"
—and clamped shut at his piercing look. "I don't pay attention to it."
"But almost every girl here has a crush on you!" she exploded, a protesting confused mess, "How can you say you don't pay attention to tha—what, because you're used to it?"
He was frowning in consideration of her words. His brows cleared anew and he lifted his shoulder in another shrug. It was so casual it reeked of class, looked cool even—something she couldn't even try. "Maybe."
"Maybe? Maybe you're used to it?"
Yet another shrug.
Yet another proof she couldn't be like him.
"You're such a bastard, y'know?"
The wonder in her voice, the note of awe of discovery of a seemingly long-buried truth, caused his eyes to narrow, hinting at how her words had affected him in some way. "You asked. Like it or not, that's your problem."
I don't care was what he was saying, but what he was showing was another story entirely. She wasn't normally sensitive to people's moods but she had learned to be sensitive to his, somehow—and as was often the case with him, she decided to go after the things he wasn't saying.
"So you really don't know. I thought you're just being an ass," she offered in concession, but she wasn't done. "But—how? I mean, they're pretty obvious, ne? They'd be talking and all and you step inside the room and they're all—quiet and shy and feminine and trying to be pretty while they make googly eyes on you. They'd be all trying to get your attention and cooing Ohayou Sasuke-kun~ Have you eaten Sasuke-kun~? You're so smart Sasuke-kun~! but you don't pay attention to it—because you're so used to it? Like, don't notice? You don't feel anything? At all?"
His frown was back and this time, she knew Sasuke was frowning because of her. "Your point, if you may."
She raised her hands in a placating gesture. "It's just... don't you feel a bit—happy at the attention? Or pleased, or smug, or whatever boys feel when girls do those things for them? Nothing at all?"
His eyes were hard as they studied her face—whatever expression she held, however, must have revealed enough of the sincerity of her confusion that she noticed a visible, if slight, softening in his eyes.
"A little," he admitted somewhat hesitantly after a brief thoughtful silence. "It is—flattering, to be the object of such things."
"Object of such things," Naruto repeated dryly. "This talent of yours, making shit boring, no one's gonna get your crown." At a deadpan stare, she crossed her arms over her chest. "It's true."
He turned away, a length of his hair brushing over his eyes that he irritably tucked behind his ear. "Whatever," he muttered. "Bothering over such things, it's just a waste of time."
"Well, yeah," she agreed lightly, the bitterness she failed to hide causing him to turn back to her in surprise. She stared at the gates ahead, smiling a little and steadfastly ignoring the eyes now boring on the side of her face. Why the hell did she keep slipping? "But it's kinda fun to think about them too, ne?" she added with a laugh.
He was thoroughly unimpressed. "Fun."
"Oh shut up," she waved off, tilting her head up to the light filtering through the leaves of the tree. Her eyes slipped shut. "We're still kids, it's not a crime."
For a glorious moment she was surrounded in wonderful silence. She could feel the wind tousling her hair and she could imagine they were fingers running through them, worshipping each strand with every stroke and glide. She could feel the grass beneath her hands and she could imagine they were skin warming under her touch, sliding into fingers that curled into hers. She could feel the sun warm on her cheeks and she could imagine they were hands cupping her face, caressing her cheeks with a tenderness she'd only ever heard of—
For a glorious moment it was silent, and the warmth of her friend by her side was enough to help her imagine all these things.
And it came, so soft—
"What's on your mind, Naruto?"
—and her eyes slowly opened and they were shining, so blue, and she was horrified to feel heat behind them and even more horrified to hear the thickness in her voice—
"I want them, Sasuke," she answered, and there was such yearning in her voice she hardly recognized it as her own. "I want someone to—have a crush on me for a change. Someone... Someone who gets quiet when I go inside the classroom, someone who tries to call my attention while pretending to be so cool and going, like, Ohayou Naruto-chan! Want some ramen Naruto-chan? You're so cool Naruto-chan!"
She shook her head, a smile trembling on her lips as she tried to staunch the flow, keep it all in—but a hole had opened and it was too late to stop, and like the waves of the ocean she couldn't stop herself from crashing at a glimpse of home. "Someone—who'd practice running his hand over his hair while looking at the back of his spoon, who'd make googly eyes on me, trying to be manly and cool as shit when he talks about stuff, practicing for when he got the—the courage to talk to me—
"I want someone who'd—elbow his friend when he sees me, who'd hear jokes about how hopeless he is, because he's the gutsiest guy they know and-and-and he's just a fucking pile of—marshmallows when I walk by, who'd hear more jokes about it because he takes a deep breath so he can fill his lungs with the smell of my shampoo," she laughed, thickly, the syrup she didn't want to take but needed to get better, "and he forgets that his friends are around him and they could see him make a fool of himself—
"I want someone to be nervous when he sees me." She swallowed, her throat hot, "Who'd be wondering if there's something on his face, if his nose has something poking out of it," she grinned at her words, "if there's food stuck between his teeth, who'd fuss at his clothes like some insecure nerd—someone who'd stay after school and lurk around the gym, then run to the canteen five minutes before practice ends so he can pass by me when I'm locking the door behind me—and nod at me, like we're nodding buddies, like we can talk without saying anything—like we're really familiar with each other!—and he'd walk away faster after I nod back so he can scream his excitement inside his head in peace and somewhere very far from me so I wouldn't—wouldn't accidentally hear it—
"I want someone who'd—who'd check his phone or his email like he has OCD because he wants to catch me!—who'd jump up when he sees my name on the screen, and reads and reads and reads my message and stops himself from replying quickly because he doesn't want to look really eager, like he'd been waiting to hear from me for a whole day, because he missed me five minutes after I stepped out of wherever we happened to be together…
"And he'd think I'm the coolest thing ever, even cooler than his Xbox or his Wii, and he'd dump his shit without another thought when his buddies call to tell him I'm at the mall. Or even in fucking Mt. Fuji, alone and having no damned clue how I'm going home, and he'd beg to borrow his mom's car so he could come to my rescue—and swallow his pride and beg directions from his brother so he could get there, heh.
"And he'd defend me, always," she went on, her voice getting softer, "even from his friends, and he'd fight anyone who'd try to call me Bitch Girl or Dumb Blonde or whatever, because he's the only one who has the right to call me names—cute nicknames, disgusting nicknames, even mean ones!—nicknames I'd gag on when I hear but I'd secretly like because there's just—just something, about the way he say them, like he really really really wants me to answer to something he made up. Made up… just for me.
"I want someone who'd pick up a guitar for me, study strumming and stuff so he could sing me songs when it's too much for him, who'd write me songs when it's just too much and he had to say it to me, because he's overflowing and he hopes it'd reach me—and he'd bug his pals to form some band and I'd be the inspiration to his songs, and he'd imagine he became famous and he'd tell everyone in live TV that he likes me, that he'd always had, and he'd spot me in the audience and get me up the stage, or he'll run out of the studio or the concert and there'll be cameras following and he'd go to my house, because he'd always made it a point to know where I am—
"He'd hate it, when I'm not around. He's worried when he doesn't know where I am. He'd miss me when I'm not in class and he'd be asking my friends where I am, trying to play it cool. And when I'm there—" she grinned, her eyes dancing like starlight over snow, "he'll daydream about me during classes. What we'd eat in our first date, where… the time he'd pick me up he'd be two hours early but he'd be knocking two minutes late because he's just so—so nervous, and so afraid that maybe I wasn't home and that he just imagined I agreed to a date with him. And when I open the door—"
Eyes misty and soft and hopeful and blue—"He'd look at me like I'm the prettiest girl he'd ever seen in his life."
Her breath hitched—she didn't mean to breathe on feelings. "And he'd walk beside me, his hands inside his pockets, because they're trembling because they want to tuck the hair that fell down my eyes, because he's afraid he might hug me, because he knows—he knows it'd be very hard to let me go.
"I want someone..." her voice lowered to a whisper, where her tears weren't heard, "… someone who'd feel all these things—for me, for a change."
She bowed her head. The ensuing silence felt heavy, like the pressure in her chest that had been getting stronger and stronger since she woke up this morning and left for school. She abruptly shook her head and gave a short laugh, a laugh that conveyed despair and envy and bitterness and acceptance, an embarrassed note choking her throat, her heart. She scrambled up with the remaining pride that she had, inwardly cursing her weakness as her hands clasped behind her and she took a few steps forward, taking deep even breaths because air was too precious to be sparse, to let go.
He'd laugh now—he'd laugh he'd laugh laugh laugh laugh—
"Na—"
She turned around, eyes twin crescents of mischief. "Ne, teme, what's taking him so long, eh?"
She could see him standing up, a snake slowly uncoiling, ready to strike with his evident displeasure. She grinned, her cheeks bunching up—it hurt to smile like this, force her muscles and squeeze her eyes harder, and she wasn't an emo kid, not by a long shot, but she once wondered if it hurts to smile and they like pain, why don't they smile?—and she knew it was stretching her birthmarks and she probably looked like some smug cat right now, or a knowing fox, and the bastard didn't like it so much when she looked like those animals—I don't really know if the bastard likes animals—but she grinned wider, and she saw his brows furrow, his eyes narrow, his form draw nearer and nearer until he was an arm's reach away from her.
"Stop being stupid."
Blunt. He had always been blunt and it was a trait she at once admired and disliked.
Right now she was at the extreme end of dislike. "Well sorry," she mocked, her hands on her hips. "Not all of us are crush-material, hot stuff."
"Dobe," he deadpanned. "You're just a coward, aren't you. Bibiri-chan."
Her eyes turned to slits in anger. Better anger than this loneliness. "Who you calling a coward, teme?" She stomped forward, fists clenching and unclenching, invading his personal space with her fighting face on.
"You think I'll think less of you for wanting that?"
She recoiled, the fight in her leaving in surprise. He stepped closer and suddenly, he was in front of her and she was exhausted—exhausted from feeling, from fighting, from baring her soul and making light of the confessions that spilled out from within. She bowed her head to his chest and her throat was so hot again, and she was just grateful that despite his aversion to touchy-feely things, he hadn't flinched or stepped back.
You caught me, after all.
He just stood there and let her lean on him.
She groaned. Cheesiness or sentimentality or mushy feelings aside, she was still Uzumaki Naruto. "I can't believe I threw all that crap at you," she mumbled. Of all possible people, it was to Mr. Frigid himself. Why couldn't she have held it in then spilled out to Sakura-chan, or Hinata, or Shikamaru, Chouji? Hell, even Kiba would be better—
Ugh, why you.
But no. She went out and angsted and spilled her guts to the first person who asked. The person she'd wanted to acknowledge her as an equal since they met.
So embarrassing.
"Me neither."
The candid admission surprised a snort out of her. She smiled when she felt his chuckle reverberating in his chest.
"But—"
She looked up—it was then she realized how close they really were, their faces mere inches from each other and his mouth moving just above hers.
"—I don't mind."
She blinked when he averted his eyes, and wondered at a flash she had caught before he turned away. "You can tell me anything. I won't mind."
Those words—they were almost hard to believe. Was he trying, in his own way, to show her that he cared?
Pfft.
The thought was ridiculous—and comforting.
"Guess we should stop this before somebody sees us, think we can actually act friendlier with each other. We don't want rumors, ne," she joked, drawing away with a dopey grin—which faltered at his expression. "What?"
He was frowning and there it was again, that flash in and out—of frustration, she realized, his dark eyes looking straight into hers. "Don't hide from me, na?"
"I'm no—"
"I mean it," he cut off, ignoring her denial. "If you're sad, don't smile. If you're angry, don't laugh. If you're miserable, don't hide it from me."
Oh the hypocrite—"Oh, like what you do all the time," she snapped back.
"This isn't about me and you know who I am," he countered, rather uncaring of her opinion. "This is about you and whoever you might be, you're an idiot who faces things head-on." She paused, unsure whether to be insulted or flattered. "Hide if you want but don't hide from me. You can't hide from me," he added, with a certainty so deep she wanted to kick his head.
She rolled her eyes instead. "What else? I can't go skinny-dipping on a full moon?"
A smack upside the head answered for her.
"Itai!"
He turned away. "Tch. It's not bad to want it."
"What, skinny dipping on a full moon?"
"Dobe—"
"Okay, okay." She raised her hands in surrender, knowing full well he couldn't see it. "Geesh. Why do you insist on talking about it?
He looked back with a raised eyebrow. "You were fine talking awhile ago."
"But that's because you made me!" Naruto stuck out her tongue. "You kept pestering me until I couldn't stand it anymore and talked my ass off!"
"I could not speak to you an entire day and you'd still think I'm pestering you."
"Gah! Stop the smartmouth!"
"And stop diverting the conversation," Sasuke retorted, this time the irritation visible. "I'm trying to understand."
She recoiled in shock. The admission jarred her—they both knew it had been difficult for him to say and suddenly, Naruto felt like a jerk for forcing him to utter them. Her shoulders slumped and her grin dropped, crumbling like a castle of fine yellow sand. "I know," she admitted, finally acknowledging the feelings she insisted on denying out of stubborn pride—pride that found it humiliating that she could feel things like these, like everybody else. "It's really out of character for me to suddenly be depressed about this too. I guess it's the season?" she offered with a crooked smile.
He grunted, glancing behind him to a black trash bag leaning on his backpack. "You know you get yours next month."
She shrugged, bit her bottom lip in another feel-y moment. "It's not actually that that's bothering me. It's just—the atmosphere is so damned mushy and—everywhere I look, everyone's with someone being—" her voice dropped in a sheepish murmur, "y'know, coosome-twosome."
He gave her a pointed look and she shook her head, almost rolling her eyes again. "We don't count, ass. We're not together together."
"And the together together crap pulled you down," he muttered.
"I guess." She shrugged again and looked down, tracing the veins in her left hand once again. "But... But I really want it," she confessed in a half-whisper. "I don't know how to go about it but—I really want it." She could feel the heat on her face, her ears—pink, dammit, or maybe even red, the whole of her—and it was so hard to even look up that she peered at him from beneath her lashes instead, a timid feeling washing over her. "Maybe I have to change or something, I'm too rough and loud, ne..."
He stared at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before. She shifted with unease, abashed and annoyed about it—in a corner of her mind she was sulking at feeling this stupid embarrassment, sullenly trying to make sense of her friend's unusual look.
Sasuke blinked, as if roused from his stupor, then snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. "Tch. You don't change for others."
She stiffened, affronted. "Hey! I can so too!"
"Idiot. Misunderstanding me again." He shook his head, his hair whipping shadows on his cheeks. "If you're going to change, change because you want to be better, not to make someone like you."
She paused, surprised at his words, and turned to him fully with a smile slowly curling on her mouth. "Since when did you get so wise, hey?" she asked, almost softly.
He rolled his eyes and went to retrieve his bag, failing to hide that half-smile from her wondering eyes. The tilt of his lips, though, vanished into a long-suffering sigh as he hefted his backpack behind him and grasped the trash bag with an expression that could only be called disgruntled.
"You're throwing them all away?" she asked, half in alarm and half in amazement, gesturing at his excess baggage. "I know you hate those stuff but dude, don't you think that's too much? They probably exerted a helluva effort to make them too!"
He stared. "You're acting overprotective for someone who can't stand them."
"They can't stand me," she corrected. "And I," she lifted her nose in mock-disdain, her eyes closing, "don't lose sleep over their opinion. Still," a blue eye popped open, "just like that? All that work down the bin?"
He gave her an odd look—surprise? annoyance? confusion?—and she raised an eyebrow in question. He replied with a shake of his head before glancing down. "I'm selling them," he said instead.
She did a double-take. "Sell?"
"That's just what I said," he said, somehow managing to insult her again despite the placid quality of his voice. "Nii-san buys them."
She straightened up. "Eh? Doesn't he, anou, get one at all?"
He snorted. "He's Uchiha, of course he does," he replied, his statement coming across as an established fact of life. His mouth twisted in a grimace, seemingly revolted at how many he got this year. "He just thinks there is no such thing as too much of it."
"Oh."
He turned to her with a raised eyebrow. "What are you scowling for?"
Even rabid dogs would cower at her glare. "I'm not scowling! Geez! You got it down pat, I'm not going to steal the only thing you're good at from you. Anyway," she crouched before her own bag and opened the front pocket, rummaging inside with her tongue sticking out of her mouth. Her face lit up after a few seconds.
"Here," she announced as she waved a bright orange box in her hand. An equally bright red ribbon held the box in place. "I know you got lots of it and you'd probably end up selling it too anyway, but Happy Valentines', teme." She suddenly snorted as something crossed her mind. "Teme amo! Get it? Teme, te amo?" Raised her eyes incredulously. "No?"
He blinked at her, nonplussed. She glared, ready to whack the box on his head for failing so hard at appreciating her timely joke. She shook her outstretched arm instead, remembering what the day was all about. "Oi! Yarou!"
He glared at her epithet and snatched the box, probably thinking to whack it on her head too, the way he brandished it against her. She snorted when he held the box up to his eyes, looking for all the world like a perplexed scientist.
"Yeah," she scoffed, "lots of welcome, sweetheart."
He ignored her and proceeded to pull at the end of the ribbon, her eyes widening when he opened the box. "Wait, what're you doing?!" she squawked.
His eyes were intense as he studied the contents of the box, as if he was contemplating a particularly complex diagram—consisting of fourteen pieces of chocolate truffles, each painted a cherry-red with three black chocolate drops shaped like commas chasing each other. Sasuke liked to doodle eyes with three black commas on the back of his papers—he erased them before passing his seatwork and tests but she had seen the drawing enough times to remember it. After fashioning the chocolates after his favorite doodle, she brushed them with red food coloring in honor of the occasion—she thought it looked kickass and she was pretty proud about it.
Though she now realized that fashioning truffles after eyes and coloring them red was probably a morbid idea.
Sasuke picked a piece, raised it to eye-level. He seemed approving of the circumstances that brought a red eye between his fingers.
Typical.
"Eating, of course," he muttered his answer before popping the red-eye chocolate in his mouth.
Blue rounded in shock as he chewed slowly. She heard an almost silent intake of breath—she watched his dark eyes begin to glaze and she worried her bottom lip. People dying tend to get glazed eyes, right?
"Hn. Not sweet."
She reflexively bit back a scream. Damn bastard, scaring her—at least she wouldn't be explaining to Uchiha-san how she killed her youngest son with a red-eye chocolate. "Of course it's not," she retorted, her words coming out in a sigh instead—his mother was really scary, "You hate sweets, I didn't use sugar."
He paused. "You made this?"
What the fuck. Did chocolatiers sell chocolates like this?
"Un."
He popped in another. "Hn."
She waited expectantly.
In typical jerkhead fashion, he took this as an order to chew more slowly and take his time while feigning interest at the tree behind her.
She huffed, pouting—which turned to growling as he took his sweet, unhurried time. The bastard just had to make her ask aloud now, eh?
As if she cared about what he thought.
"Well?" she demanded.
"Hn?"
"You know well damned well!"
He turned to her with an infuriating smirk slowly making its way to his lips—that stupid smirk drove her crazy and he knew it, the arrogant ass. Before it could settle, his eyes narrowed, transferring suddenly to a point over her shoulder, and she was making up her mind whether to punch him in the shoulder or grab him in a headlock for trying to distract her with such a dumb distracting tactic—
"Hn. About time."
"Whadya—oh!" Her eyes lit up and she turned around, everything within her electrified with a familiar lightning skipping all over her skin. She eagerly picked up her bag and broke forward into a run, things slowing down around her as she ran for all she was worth to the person they had been waiting for.
"Sasuke."
To Uchiha Itachi, serene by the empty gates, waiting for them with a black trash bag full of chocolates completing his calm picture.
"Naruto-kun."
She always wondered why Sasuke's brother called her like that. Was it because of her hair? She did like to keep it short, it was easier to wash and wear her hair like that. Maybe because he knew she wasn't sold to Naruto-chan? She wouldn't really mind if he called her that...
Whatever the reason, though, she liked the sound of it. And it wasn't because his voice was deep yet soothing, calming the wildness within her as easily as if he was crooning a well-loved lullabye to a crying infant.
"Yes?" he asked politely.
Naruto blinked out of her reverie. "You got one too, Nii-san?" she asked, eyeing the bag with disdain. It looked bigger than what Sasuke was holding, too. Or maybe the bag was smaller so it looked full?
"Hn."
"Nii-san. Chocolate, right cheek," Sasuke greeted, catching up with them—which was a bit remarkable, considering the way he sauntered. But then again, Naruto never saw him run—even during PE, Sasuke looked like he was captured sauntering in time-lapse. It was mind-blowing and enraging.
She had accused him once of phasing through the Fourth Dimension to humiliate her.
Without a break in his expression, Itachi raised his right thumb to swipe and, after catching the renegade chocolate, turned courteously to his side to lick the same thumb as discreetly as he could.
"Hopeless," Sasuke muttered.
Naruto inwardly agreed. Why did he have to look so hopelessly cute, eh? Where was fairness, where was justice in this world? If she did that people would back away, not find it endearingly child-like.
When Itachi turned to them, face completely clean as he wiped his thumb with a pristine white handkerchief, Sasuke raised his own trash bag. "96,600 ryo."
"Hn."
"WHAT!?"
Both turned to her, perplexed at her reaction. She probably looked stupid, her mouth hanging open and her eyes deer-in-the-headlights wide. "96,600 ryo just for chocolates?"
"322 chocolates, Naruto-kun," Itachi offered placidly, as if a mere correction was enough for the amount to make sense. She felt ridiculously pleased that he had faith in her IQ.
"So—" she made some quick calculations, must prove his faith wasn't misplaced—
"300 ryo each," Sasuke cut in.
—which wasn't quick enough for an arrogant numbers-eating Uchiha Maths geek, apparently, "300 ryo for one chocolate? Are you insane?!"
"Fan girl chocolate is the best," Itachi said, his voice soft and dreamy.
Sasuke sighed, witness to her deepening bewilderment—she had never heard Nii-san sound like that before, it was so nice... "Fan girls buy the best chocolates," he explained, snapping her back to the present, "They try to make chocolates but when it ends up wrong, they buy the best. When it ends up right, it is right." He shrugged to his brother's direction. "So he says."
"Still, 96,600 ryo?" she mumbled. "Insane. I can eat ramen for two years with that, maybe three…"
She saw Sasuke roll his eyes and she was sure he made damned sure she saw that, rich bastard. "You?"
"Double yours," Itachi replied, smoothly and none with the arrogance anyone would have expected with such an answer.
Naruto scowled. Stupid fan girls, knowing Nii-san's weakness. How dare they use that on him.
"Well?"
She started in surprise. Only then did she realize she had been scowling for some time now and the Uchiha kyoudai had been looking at her with questions flaring brightly, to her, beneath dark blank eyes.
Naruto scratched her nape, a bit embarrassed. "Anou, Nii-san—I got you something too—" She reached behind her, to the side pocket of her backpack where the particular box had been all day and reached for it. Ducking her head, she offered it with both hands, tangling nerves twitching her mouth to form a parody of a smile—
"Happy Valentines' Day, Itachi-niisan!"
—and a stupid, high-pitched squeak she would deny to her dying breath.
She could hear the question in her friend's voice, and a note of concern. "Dobe."
Naruto ignored him, mortified, but peeked beneath her lashes, compelled by a force more powerful than her—swallowing to wet her dry throat, she felt somewhat appeased, and giddy, at Itachi's reaction, a slow blinking of dark eyes that reminded her of a round kitten just roused from a three-hour nap. She was quivery in her socks, her palms cold and sweaty, and she released a sigh without meaning to when Itachi reached forward—
"Thank you."
—and accepted with the hesitant shy smile she lived everyday to see.
She straightened up, trying to contain her grin, her strange anxiety vanishing like a drop of water in the desert. "Lotsa welcome, Nii-san!" She finally glanced at her watching friend and failed to resist a jibe. "Unlike some other Uchiha who couldn't even thank properly—"
Sasuke snorted and everything was as it should be.
A small rustling sound pierced the quiet afternoon and Naruto whipped back—her eyes rounding at the sight that met her.
"You too?!"
Itachi paused. "Is something the matter?" he asked placidly.
"N-No," she stuttered, and cursed passionately within her soul that she did so. "Just… now? I mean, yeah—but you're—now—"
"Eating?" Itachi murmured, pulling the last orange ribbon. "Of course."
Naruto couldn't stop the thought that for all the similarities of their words, the delivery of said words by the Uchiha kyoudai were worlds apart.
With the delicate finger of a chocolate gourmand, Itachi traced a finger over a truffle painted a cherry red, a drizzle of chocolate syrup forming a pinwheel. Understanding seemed to flash in his eyes—understanding of what? did he understand why she used a pinwheel?—before he chose a piece and, with the impatient eagerness of a child, popped it in his mouth.
Blue eyes rounded as he tasted thoughtfully, and chewed slowly—as dark eyes glazed with a half-dreamy smile.
"Hn. Sweet."
It took too long to blink out of the haze of her trance. "Un. I used milk—honey. Some sugar. Yeah."
Itachi nodded, still chewing. "You made this."
Naruto smiled, a touch shy. It was answer enough.
Itachi nodded again. "The first chocolate is always the best."
And he took another piece and she thought she might start skipping.
... I'm his first chocolate?!
Another and she thought she might actually soar up high.
UWAAAAAAAAAA—
"—Oi. Dobe. Oi."
—WAAAAAAAAA!
She grounded on her teeth, her eyes burning with her scream.
GYAAAAAAAAAA—
This day, it's not bad at all.
—AAAAAAAAAAA!
"Naruto!"
It unintentionally came out in a gentle sigh. "Shut up, teme."
Itachi chuckled. "You're the only one I've heard who sounds sweet with such words."
She felt her cheeks flush and resisted—mightily—the suddenly disgusting inclination to toe the ground with her head bowed. She didn't know whether to be embarrassed about the comment or pleased she made Itachi laugh a little.
Wait.
I made Itachi-niisan laugh.
What the actual fuck—
I made Itachi-niisan laugh.
She cleared her throat and clamped her mouth shut. Laughter burbled in her throat, desperate to manifest itself in her lips, her eyes, staining her cheeks helplessly that despairing shade of pink. "Um," came out instead.
Inwardly, Naruto violently cursed.
"You sound like a girl," Sasuke scoffed.
"Yarou!" Naruto immediately growled, all trace of the revolting shyness gone as she almost happily latched on familiarity. "I am a girl! Baka!"
He turned away, hands in his pockets and clearly done with the conversation—but not before showing her a clear, superior smirk. "Tch. You know what I mean."
"I don't understand bastard-talk." Naruto lunged at the retreating back, intent on understanding what the hell the little asshole meant. Said little asshole dodged like the inconsiderate jerk he was. "Oi, I'm not done with you! Make sense, jerk! Come back here!"
Sasuke's words floated back to her. "Sure about that—Naruto-chan?"
She froze.
Here it was, the laughter, he was laughing at her now—
"Asshole."
—crushing her with his taunt—
"Moron."
—before crushing her to his chest and planting a kiss on her forehead.
"Bas—huh?"
Her heart pounded in shock. Did Sasuke just—
"Happy Valentine's Day... Naruto."
He turned away to join his brother to the car waiting to bring them home—but not before leaving her with a smile so honest, so devastating—
Shit. No wonder the girls—
"Naruto-kun."
She looked up. Her forehead still tingled and she probably looked like an idiot, jaw hanging open with her forehead tingling, her face burning, rooted to the spot because her knees had locked up and she was trembling, probably, this really really sucked—
"Tch. Standing like an idiot won't bring us closer to home."
—and she shot forward like a cannonball and tackled Sasuke to the car.
"Teme!"
This was the first time in her whole life that this day mattered to her, that she made an effort to be a part of it for the people she had come to call family. Amidst gentle and amused admonishments, quiet taunting ruined by snickers, and aggravated growls peppered with mad cackles and giggles, Naruto knew she would never forget this silly day of hearts and chocolates and rollercoaster feelings in the many years to come.
"Happy Valentine's too," she whispered, barely audible, as he dozed beside her on the backseat. She held her breath and quickly gave his temple the lightest of kiss.
Naruto wasn't sure but she thought Sasuke was smiling.