"You play the bass?" Sakura asked at lunch, shocked. Naruto pulled the huge instrument out of its cloth case and nodded. Sasuke looked up. He'd been lugging his violin around all day since he hadn't had time to replace the lock and moronic fangirls would often ransack his music locker. He wasn't surprised that Naruto had his bass (the only bass room they had at Sarutobi Academy was just barely large enough to house the five school basses, they'd never needed any more than that), though he did feel sorry for him for having to carry it around all day. He supposed Naruto had refused to use one of the school ones. He couldn't blame him, they were in poor shape and Naruto's bass was nice.
"Kakashi-sensei told me to bring it today for the orchestra students. I've been in that class all day. So they can hear how I play some piece they're working on. No one plays the bass good here, I guess. But I don't have room in my schedule for Orchestra, though it'd be fun. Kakashi's always trying to get me to join anyway."
"You're that g-good?" Hinata asked shyly. She was a cellist, though a clumsy one, and it was obvious she had a major crush on Naruto to everyone except Naruto himself.
"He's pretty good," Sasuke contributed to the conversation.
The group turned to look at Sasuke.
Sasuke fingered the handle of his violin case. "He played for my class today." Sasuke didn't think he'd ever before heard a decent bass player in person, and he was more than a little surprised to find Naruto to be the "great bass player" Kakashi-sensei had said he was bringing in to talk to the basses.
Naruto grinned.
"Tch. That was nothing. You guys play cheap music."
It was true, Sasuke knew that much. Their music was stupid. Sasuke was concert master, and much better than anyone else, except perhaps Neji the cellist prodigy.
"Play something for us!" said Sakura, clapping her hands together. She and Naruto were best friends, though apparently she hadn't known either.
Naruto grinned. "Took ya long enough to ask."
He plucked the strings carefully, listening carefully to each one in comparison to the others, and tweaking the ornate pegs as necessary. Finally, the fifths matched up and the strings resonated with each other. He ran his finger lightly down the E string and bowed, wowing the small crowd that had gathered with the flute-like harmonics.
And then he began to play.
Sasuke was instantly caught in the music. It was a Brandenburg concerto, and Sasuke knew the violin part by heart, and had heard it enough times to know where the melody was in the harmony Naruto was playing.
He could have opened up his violin, but watched Naruto instead.
There was something about the way he played, something about the way he held the bow, that had caught Sasuke's attention before, and now, when Naruto held the instrument in his hand again, Sasuke knew what it was. Naruto and his instrument were one, the way that Naruto and a soccer ball during practice were symbiotic. The bow was an extension of his arm, the instrument itself connected through Naruto's fingers where they danced along the fingerboard and his shoulder where it rested.
Sasuke couldn't remember a time in his life that he hadn't heard lovely music and simply wanted to listen- all his life he had been chasing after the moment when he could amaze himself during his violin recitals, and enjoy the music fully, love it and play it and be happy with himself and his instrument. It had never happened, however, and now watching Naruto he wondered if it was simply because he had never let himself. Because Naruto honestly, truly looked like he enjoyed the music, and Sasuke realized that it was worth enjoying. He was content to sit and listen, but somewhere in between some long slow notes, Naruto spoke to him.
"Hey, Sasuke, you've got your violin. You know this song, right? It's a Brandenburg. Maybe the third, I think... Yeah, the third. Do you know it? Wanna play along with me?"
And suddenly, the feelings of contentment, of passivity, were gone. Sasuke couldn't open his violin case fast enough.
Naruto grinned.
"Coming up here's a G." He let the note ring, he was supposed to be playing it at that moment and Sasuke was amused that he didn't stop playing, only added in a fermata. He found it on his violin string as well, tuned them as quickly as possible, and picked up with Naruto.
He fell into time with Naruto's bowings, and hardly cared that he, the violin soloist, ought to have been leading. This was Naruto's concert, and he let Naruto's notes ring louder than his own and played as absolutely well as he could. There were a few mess-ups where Sasuke had to follow Naruto's lead on an arrangement he hadn't played, but eventually they fell into a sort of rhythm and it got easier to tell where Naruto was leading him. There wasn't really a need to play the correct parts with a piece like the Brandenburg, because they were sort of separate melodies, but occasionally where they could they would play together.
It was so simple to enjoy the music when he wasn't playing by himself or with a horrible orchestra. The bass harmony mixed so well with Sasuke's violin, and Naruto let Sasuke lead a few parts that were meant for the violin to lead. Sasuke found himself almost smiling by the time they reached the final section. It was... fun.
They let the final note, another G, ring loudly throughout the quad. Naruto glanced at Sasuke, and when Sasuke nodded they lifted their bows off the strings in unison.
Naruto stuck out a hand to Sasuke, and suddenly he was just a person holding a large wooden box- no trace of his elegant verbrato, steady intonation and bowing. Suddenly, he was just the Naruto that Sasuke had always known, back again.
"Good to play with ya. We should do it again sometime."
Sasuke shook Naruto's hand, the calluses evident where his fingers hit the unforgiving metal strings most often. "Yeah. We should." The amazed crowd and their applause around them disappeared in Naruto's smile and blue eyes, and Sasuke wondered, felt something-
And then the bell rang for lunch to end. It ended the moment, too, and they let go and went to get their backpacks to go to fifth period.
Yay, whee. I got the idea for this in my orchestra class. D: I've become one of those orchestra people who writes orchestra fanfiction! Oh no.
Oh, well. I like it. I think it's kind of fun. Just because I felt like publishing something. :D
Sasuke's a concert master kind of guy, don't you think? And can't you see Neji rocking out loud with a cello? And due to my school's bassists (who really aren't bad at all), I tend to think of bassists as sort of clownish people, which is why Naruto is a bassist. I think Sakura's a violist kind of girl, too, but I didn't put her in orchestra because... I didn't feel like it. xD And I had to add in the SasuNaruSasu fluff, because... well, that's how I roll. :D
Anyway, I'm fifth chair of the second violins but it's cool. I'm in the second highest orchestra at my school and I'm not so bad, if I do say so myself. Anyway, whatever. I'm tired.