Katsuobushi - Chapter 2

When Sasuke awoke from his slumber in his fortress of solitude that morning, he had intended to simply take a shower, change into a fresh set of clothes, set off for his team's assigned mission of the day and return in the afternoon for some training by himself. The last thing he expected was to find himself in the home of his rival, cautiously stepping over empty ramen cups strewn haphazardly on the floor, and trying not to gag on the smell of a glass of spoilt milk sitting on the dirty table in the living room.

The house was silent aside from faint whimpering noises coming from the bedroom.

Sighing to himself and once again inwardly cursing Kakashi into oblivion, Sasuke picked up the half-filled glass and, with his shirt pressed firmly against his nose with one hand, walked it to the kitchen and disposed of the putrid milk inside of it. He stepped out of the kitchen, saw the messy living room, and bit his lip in frustration. Before he knew it, Sasuke had, with considerable speed, thrown the empty ramen cups (Sasuke lost count of how many he had touched about halfway through the process) into the bin, tied up the already festering garbage bag and tossed it out the door onto the dobe's front porch.

Sasuke didn't know what had possessed him to help with Naruto's obvious lackadaisical neglect of his living conditions, but the clean freak in him simply couldn't let trash lie around, no matter where it was.

"Oi, dobe! Don't you clean this place once in a while, you lazy shit?"

Not getting a reply, Sasuke frowned before walking towards the bedroom. It seemed to be in Naruto's very nature to immediately throw back an insult when he received one, therefore his silence on the matter of his laziness and his shittiness was alarming indeed. Sasuke wondered how far out of it Naruto had to be to actually decline a verbal battle.

Pushing the door to the bedroom open, Sasuke stepped into the room only to stop short at the miserable sight in front of him. A blond head of hair was sticking out from a pile of blankets, the entire mass quivering slightly, hands sticking out from underneath the covers and gripping at the blankets with all their might. Sasuke could hear faint breathing noises, and once in a while a cough or a sniffle would break the pattern of interspersed inhaling and exhaling. Further observation indicated that the sheets appeared to be slightly damp. His disbelief and disgust at the thought of Naruto actually wetting his bed gave way to relieved understanding when he saw the thin layer of sweat on the small area of Naruto's exposed forehead before it concealed itself in the darkness of the comforter.

"Dobe. Hey, dobe…"

Sasuke leant forward and rested his knees on Naruto's bed, reaching over to tug at the mass of blankets. The boy seemed not to notice his presence, not giving any indication of awareness of the fact that there was somebody else on his bed. Rolling his eyes, Sasuke gripped the top of the Naruto's comforter and pulled it down to expose his face.

What he saw nearly made him, Uchiha "Emotionless" Sasuke, lose his perfectly rigid composure.

Naruto's complexion was paler than Sasuke had ever seen him. Dark rings were present around his eyes, undoubtedly from lack of sleep. The eyes themselves were reddened by exhaustion, and Sasuke could spot a few faint tear marks streaking down from his eyes to the side of his face. Naruto's nose was running like a tap, and from the countless balls of tissue paper scattered on and around the bed, it was likely that it had been running for nearly the entire night. Sasuke then noticed a bucket on the other side of Naruto's bed. Craning his neck to look into it, he realised that it was nearly a quarter full with Naruto's vomit.

Damn, the dobe really is sick.

Sasuke's brow furrowed in worry.

"Oi, Naruto. Are you okay? Talk to me, dobe."

"Hn."

Sasuke almost wanted to smack Naruto on the head for stealing his line, but he feared that the joke would have been lost in the situation.

"Dobe. Seriously."

"Hn."

Naruto drew his pyjamas sleeve across his face, smearing it with tears and mucus, an action that made Sasuke cringe and inch away from him.

"That's disgusting, dobe. Kakashi told me to come and look after-"

"Hn!"

Before Sasuke could even finish his sentence, Naruto turned his head and pressed it tightly into his already dirtied pillow, covering his ears in desperation and silently nudging Sasuke off the bed. Sasuke would have been offended by being so rudely cut off in the middle of speaking if Naruto hadn't been a ball of sweat, tears and sick. Realising that the boy was probably in no condition to talk, Sasuke slipped off Naruto's sweat-stained bed and inched back towards the door.

A stray thought caused him to stop in his tracks. If Naruto really had been sick since the previous night (as the shear number of tissue balls suggested), and Kakashi was right in stating that he was completely unable of getting out of bed, it was unlikely that the blond-haired child had eaten anything since at least twelve hours ago. Judging from the bucket of sick, it was likely that he had thrown up his last ingested meal as well.

Even dobes needed to eat once in a while, right?

Maybe I should make him something.

Sasuke nearly smacked himself on the head for even thinking of that suggestion, but instead settled with pouting to himself as he leant against Naruto's bedroom wall, his eyes directed at the quivering ball on the bed, two voices arguing with each other in his adolescent head.

The dobe can look after himself.

Look at him! He can't even get out of bed!

I'm not wasting my effort to cook for him. He'd probably just guzzle it down without any appreciation whatsoever, knowing him.

Doesn't matter. You know the right thing to do. Naruto's sick and he needs food. You're in the best position right now to give it to him.

Yeah but-

Teme.

Dobe.

Realising that his inner voices had regressed to insulting one another, Sasuke sighed heavily as he stepped back into the kitchen. Not only had he been Naruto's housemaid by cleaning up his dirty living room, but it appeared that he was going to become his personal chef as well. Not wanting to admit that he was actually concerned about his teammate, Sasuke settled with reasoning with himself, justifying that if he didn't give the dobe some food, Kakashi would punish him by giving his privacy away to their team's annoying pink-head. Also, as he made meals for himself at home all the time, it was highly unlikely that making another portion would take any effort whatsoever.

A string of desperate arguments to defend his stoic image in his head, Sasuke finally felt comfortable enough to start his work in Naruto's kitchen.

"What in the actual fuck…"

The first cabinet in the kitchen which he opened was stocked full of small cups of instant ramen, the cups stacked neatly in rows of ten and completely filling up all available space, it's very existence a juxtaposition to the utter disarray that the living room had been in when Sasuke had first stepped into the house. A quick survey of the cups indicated that there were about a hundred in that single cabinet. Shaking his head and muttering under his breath about the lack of nutritional value in instant store-bought ramen, Sasuke closed the first cabinet and shifted himself to face the second.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

Sasuke could feel his eyes starting to twitch as they rested upon yet another perfectly arranged array of ramen cups, these a different colour from the ones he had seen in the first cabinet. He slammed the door shut in irritation, giving the cabinet an unwarranted kick and a dirty look before he approached another adjacent to it. His search yielded yet another cabinet full of Sasuke's hated ramen cups, and as he quickly perused the kitchen for something that could be of actual culinary use without being needlessly unhealthy, the frustration that he felt upon finding continuous masses of instant noodles loaded with preservatives gradually gave way to concern as he opened cabinet after cabinet, none yielding anything more than ramen and an unopened bag of flour.

Sasuke's paused his almost desperate search for something remotely palatable to throw a worried gaze at Naruto's bedroom door. The sound of whimpering had finally regressed into congested snoring, indicating that his blond rival had finally been able to get some sleep. Sasuke picked up one of the cups of instant ramen and stared at it absentmindedly, his brow furrowed.

Is this what the dobe has been eating every day?

Team Seven met nearly every other day to train together and complete missions, some of which were physically demanding and required sufficient energy. While Naruto had never shown any sign of exhaustion, in fact usually looking as though he had enough energy for the three of them combined, how had he been able to survive on substandard food for so long? How much nutrition could a body leech from preserved flour, starch and salt? How was it possible that anybody could exist on instant noodles and hot water for every meal?

Why didn't Naruto bother to prepare proper food? Was he simply too lazy to give a damn about looking after himself properly?

After the volley of questions running through his head, Sasuke then stumbled upon a realisation that sent his gaze shooting back towards the bedroom door, the unopened ramen cup banished from his hand to the kitchen counter. An expression akin to dismay appeared on his face, looking horribly out of place on the boyishly handsome features of an Uchiha offspring. Sasuke felt himself leaning against the refrigerator, his body barely registering his own movement.

Naruto never had anybody to teach him how to cook.

Both Naruto and Sasuke were orphans, and Sasuke had never seriously bothered to compare his plight and pain with Naruto's own, having always felt that he had gotten the shorter end of the stick, his family present for the first few years of his life before being ruthlessly snatched away by the actions of a man whom he had loved, and believed loved him. Sasuke had always looked down on Naruto for that express reason, that mildly masochistic idea of the "worse-off" competition. As far as he was concerned, Sasuke had experienced the greatest horrors. Naruto never knew his parents, and therefore couldn't claim that he missed his family as he never had a proper family to miss.

But as Uchiha Sasuke stood silently in Uzumaki Naruto's kitchen and stared at the vast multitude of instant ramen cups, he was suddenly overcome with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Naruto had never had anybody to care for him, to impart wisdom that a parent would teach to their child, to show him how to chop carrots and knead dough. As much as Sasuke tried to abandon the ties that he had attained in the past for the purpose of grief and revenge, he could never deny the fact that his mother and father had given him knowledge that he would use throughout his life, whether consciously or otherwise.

The value behind such knowledge was now blindingly obvious. Sasuke could cook for himself perfectly well and was growing into a fine specimen of a man, while Naruto's growth was painfully stunted by his lack of proper nutrition.

It was something that Sasuke couldn't exactly blame Naruto for.

Shaking the slight guilt that he was feeling out of his head, Sasuke straightened his posture resolutely before tugging the bag of flour out of its cabinet, the one ingredient in the entire kitchen that he was willing to use. Turning to face the refrigerator, he inhaled a deep breath as he prayed that there would be something, just something that he could use to make a proper meal.

Once the dobe got out of bed, Sasuke was getting proper food into his teammate even if he had to forcefully cram it into his big mouth.

After the disappointing search of Naruto's kitchen, his refrigerator yielded a small selection of workable ingredients, proof that somebody, either Iruka or Hokage Sarutobi, was at the very least making sure that Naruto had sufficient food to survive. From the completely unopened jar of dashi, freshly sealed bag of miso paste and untouched box of eggs, it was still clear to Sasuke that Naruto probably had no idea how to use the ingredients even if he had them, a gap in basic understanding that Iruka-sensei and the Hokage had perhaps failed to take into account.

Sasuke had spent the last fifteen minutes steadily kneading the dough that he made with the raw flour, eggs and water with his hands, gradually sprinkling additional flour and adding water to feed the dough when he felt it needed nourishment. After the dough finally attained the texture which he knew would yield properly prepared noodles, Sasuke left the dough to rest for the same amount of time which he had spent preparing it, a crucial step that many who attempted to make their own dough would forget in their own impatience. Sasuke briefly recalled the very same mistake he had made as a child when helping his mother in the kitchen a long time ago, and grunted. Mikoto Uchiha had always been a remarkably patient woman.

With alarming speed and flair that his countless fangirls would have swooned over (though that wasn't saying much, since they swooned over his every action anyway), Sasuke rolled, folded and cut the dough into careful strips, watching as fresh ramen noodles fell onto the chopping board. He couldn't help but grin to himself in silent pride as he looked at the perfectly formed noodles, noting that it had been a long time since he had bothered to prepare fresh ramen for himself. He then carefully separated the noodles before adding them into boiling water.

Step one was complete.

Sasuke made a few valiant attempts to brush raw flour that had made its way onto his black Uchiha-crested shirt, but to no avail. Wiping his forehead clean of sweat and accidentally getting some flour onto his face in the process, Sasuke turned back to the kitchen counter, where he had placed an assortment of ingredients. All there was left to do was to prepare the broth and cook whichever additional components that he wanted to add to the ramen.

Sasuke sighed.

The dobe had better appreciate this.

Author's Note - Like I said, short story. I've always had the habit of include cooking processes in my writing, sometimes when it isn't needed. Hopefully you all don't think this is one of those situations. The story should be wrapped up quite nicely in the next chapter.

Reviews appreciated.

~SUITELIFEFAN