Title: Sour Patch Kids - a "Naruto" fanfiction
Alternative Title: Sour. Sweet. Gone.
Originally Written: September 26, 2010 and October 2, 2010
Pairings: Uchiha Sasuke x Uzumaki Naruto
Disclaimer: Original Story and Characters Copyrighted by Masashi Kishimoto
Warnings: Contains shounen-ai and hints of yaoi. Possible mentions of spoilers (beginning of Shippuden material). If you do not like or know the meaning of any of the above, please click the "Back" button.
At first, it was like any rivalry.
Rejoined together on the same team years after their first understanding as children, they fought bitterly. Sasuke thought it was beneath him to be remotely interested in girls, especially her - he refused to bicker with Naruto over her attentions. But it didn't help him against a resentfully jealous Naruto resorting to petty tactics to triumph, both over him and of her.
It was a sour reunion, marred by the added dynamic of females to their delicate understanding of each other, the quiet connection they felt between each other disrupted and corrupted by a bitter new dynamic in their relationship.
Private scuffles transformed into private brawls, the trees and shivering wildlife their only witnesses. Anger at their sudden non-synchronization - the pain of losing the only other person to understand him - it was too much.
Then Naruto, the ever clumsy shinobi, tripped over a tree root as he ran forward to punch Sasuke. They landed in a heap, tangled together while groaning in pain. Naruto moved to get up, but his arm slipped, his face falling forward to land on Sasuke.
Unlike the last time when they were frozen in shock, he quickly pulled away, scrambling to increase the distance between the two. Naruto turned away from Sasuke as he slowly sat up. As one, both lifted a hand to touch their mouths, tongue darting out to taste the residue flavor. A sweet taste lingered behind, reminiscent of better days, one where they had still understood each other, had still been friends.
It was an addicting taste, that flavor lingering on their lips. One the two exploited time and time again in their sweet reunion - as more than the friends they had once been, more than the mere rivals they had become.
But the end came too quickly, leaving Naruto sitting on his bed in the hospital, looking out into the distance through his small window. An impossibly blue sky, a cheerful sun - they had all been dimmed only days before by the artificial rainstorm they had created between the two of them. A few minutes where the "weather" reflected what Naruto had felt for those hours during the chase.
He was gone - left without a look behind, without a goodbye.
A strange relationship, only echoed in the words of a candy.
Sour. Sweet. Gone.
Authoress's Note: I had planned to write this earlier in the week, but I lost my motivation to keep writing it, so I finished it part of the way. I just concluded the other piece now, so I hope the transition between these parts weren't disjointed.
This piece was inspired by a forum game on this site I frequent (less frequently now, but I'm still active!) - I love it when ideas come from random sources, though I am never sure if what I have written is completely worthless or not, because I can rarely distinguish good ideas from bad.