Unrequited
--
Naruto
--
Naruto tucked into his noodles with less enthusiasm than usual. Even in the dim lighting of the cozy ramen shop he could make out the shape of the back of Sakura's head, her spiky pink hair sticking out here and there. She laughed at something Kankuro had said before taking a sip of her tea.
His eyes slid back to his own bowl of steaming noodles before either of them caught him glancing their way. He knew they were on a date, and he promised not to interfere, but if Sakura knew how dejected he was feeling he knew she'd insist on him joining them. No, no, better not to tempt her. She would fuss over him the same way Temari fussed over Gaara.
"You're not eating." A cool voice pointed out. Naruto turned to his buddy for the night, his good friend, the kazekage. Green eyes looked at him curiously. Gaara hadn't even asked what Naruto wanted to eat for dinner, but simply led him to the ramen shop as if it was a given. "You don't like the food?" He reached for the bowl to take it away but Naruto pulled it back and scowled at him.
"I like the food just fine! It's perfect! I just," his expression frumped back into a frown, "have been feeling a little down recently." His gaze shot up at the happy couple conversing a few booths away and looked beyond Kankuro's shoulder.
Sasuke sat alone at the bar, eating his meal in solitude. Though they had succeeded in getting him back to Konoha, things still weren't quite back to… normal. And it left a heaviness in Naruto's heart that he hadn't expected. Bringing him back had been such a thrill. Naruto imagined the many things they'd do together, the many ways they'd go back to leading their old lives, but Sasuke quickly demonstrated that he failed to share that dream. Weeks of aloofness and a cold shoulder outside of anything mission related and Naruto felt that Sasuke was farther away than when he had been missing. It left a gnawing ache that wouldn't seem to be content until Sasuke threw some sort of recognition his way.
Sakura had teased him about it. After years of turning down his date invitations she had finally started to warm up to him and felt more comfortable teasing the boy. But when her repeated jokes about unrequited crushes finally drew silence from the usually loud mouthed boy, she stopped. So did the date invitations.
Naruto slurped the miso soup from his bowl, scowling a bit when he scalded his tongue. "Gyah, that's hot!"
"I told you to be careful." Gaara looked at him through the corner of his eye, chopsticks raised to his mouth with a bite of bamboo shoots.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered while blowing on a spoonful this time before shoveling it with a clump of green onion down his throat.
"What's wrong?" Gaara asked calmly. He slurped his noodles quietly, though his eyes never left Naruto. Noodles filled his mouth, letting Naruto know that he was waiting for him to talk.
"It's nothing really. Just over reacting to something I guess."
"But you said you feel down." Gaara prompted, as though this said everything.
"Can't a guy get depressed now and then?" Naruto retorted a bit too sharply. He winced when he realized he'd taken his anger out on Gaara. Instead of apologizing, he stuffed two slices of pork into his mouth.
"Yes, but you never feel sorry for yourself when you do." Gaara placed a slice of his own pork into Naruto's bowl. "Have some. I can't eat this many."
He said it so calmly and yet they tore through Naruto like a blade. Naruto sighed. Gaara was right. It wasn't like him to mope around. Whenever a challenge had been thrown Naruto's way he had risen to meet it. He had always refused to cry about things and believed in action instead. Still, he was not so sure this was a battle that could be won.
"This is… different." Naruto spoke carefully. He chewed on a bamboo shoot, grinding it between his left molars while he contemplated his own way of explaining.
"Gaara?" He turned his body to face the kazekage, who was now tackling a particularly large mass of noodles. "Have you ever had a crush?" Gaara's brows knit into a question, noodles still partway through his mouth. "You know, like the way your brother likes Sakura, or the way Temari likes Shikamaru. You get these warm fuzzy feelings when you think of a person and always want to be around them. A crush."
Gaara seemed to ponder these words before nodding slowly. Naruto accepted this, taking a deep breath as his eyes shot over to the solitary shinobi now leaving the bar. "Do you know what it means when it's unrequited?" Gaara shook his head, but Naruto's eyes never left that retreating back. Sasuke never even looked at him once. "It's when you feel this way about someone, but they don't feel the same." Gaara tilted his head. He took a sip of his soup, allowing Naruto to continue. "Obviously Shikamaru is crazy for your sister, or he wouldn't bother allowing himself to be shuffled over to Suna so often, and judging by the way Sakura-chan hasn't punched your brother through the door yet, I'd say he has a pretty good shot, but for me… it's a hopeless case. I get warm fuzzies, he gets… annoyed?"
"This unrequited crush…it's made you unhappy?" Naruto looked over at Gaara again, having finally abandoned looking at the now empty stool. He was surprised to see that Gaara had completely finished his bowl while Naruto's own was still half full. It was a first. Naruto nodded before slurping up the remaining noodles. "Why?"
Sipping from the bowl directly, he drank the whole thing down and plopped it back onto the table with a resounding clink.
Naruto pat his belly, "Ahh, gochisousama." He gave Gaara a hesitant smile, pondering the best way to answer that question. "Because I want those precious to me to recognize me, and feel that I'm precious too. It hurts… when they don't care in return."
Gaara nodded, the look of too much comprehension dawning behind those green eyes. Naruto assumed that Gaara, out of anyone, would know how that felt. He spent half his life wanting to be loved and not receiving the slightest form of affection. Naruto trusted that he had made the connection before rising to his feet. He pulled out the little green frog purse from his pocket, motioning for Gaara to stay when he reached for his own.
"It's my treat!" He grinned and for the first time this entire evening, he looked like his normal self again. "A thank you, for listening to me whine." He dashed off to the front of the restaurant, bill in hand.
Gaara sat quietly, watching that blond hair wade through the dim light.
Unrequited? His hand fisted slightly, clasping the material over his heart. So that's what it's called.