Diclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.
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A/N: Thanks for the reviews :) Didn't expect it, and it really made my day, heeeee.
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CHAPTER 2:
Naruto tilted his head to have better access to the boy's neck. He buried his face in it and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He hummed lightly, visibly pleased.
"You smell so good that I could eat you, you know."
A little grunt was heard.
"Mm, 'am not edible, moron", a muffled voice answered him.
He felt the jaw contracting against his nose, and smiled on the skin as his lover yawned. The tender flesh was brushing against his half-opened mouth, and a pleasant shiver ran down his spine. He pressed his torso against the brunet's back, and tightened his grip around his waist.
"That's what you think", he murmured, before biting on the other's jugular. He smirked lazily when hearing a quiet, hoarse moan. He really loved those moments. "But I know better", he finished in a sing-song mumbling voice, which won him an amused chuckle from the body stuck up against him.
"You know what?" he spoke up again as one of his tanned hands came up to play with a pale one, the two contrasting against each other.
"Hn. What, dobe?"
"I could stay like that forever."
He could practically see Sasuke's pinky lips curling up just slightly, even behind his closed eyes.
"Me too, Naruto. Me too."
Sasuke was the first to part his fucking perfectly shaped pillow-lips. I quickly wished he hadn't.
"Is this some kind of a sick joke?" he asked with an icy voice, and it took me five long seconds to understand that he wasn't speaking to me.
Well, Kakashi didn't seem to understand either.
"Did I miss something, or…?" he wondered out loud and, had it been another situation, I would have laughed at his perplexed tone, something pretty exceptional. Instead, I stayed focused on the brunet in front of me, my left eyebrow twitching successively.
"Why?" I couldn't help but ask scornfully, my voice vibrating with disdain as I recalled our last exchange months ago. It was not a pleasant memory. "Because I'm not dead, yet? Sorry to disappoint you."
Talk about being spiteful. The fact that he was looking as good as ever, especially when riled up (fucking hellcat), wasn't helping at all.
His eyes narrowed, the two black orbs shining with what I could associate with hate or anger. I wasn't quite sure which one to choose yet.
"I'm sure I can find a way to remediate to this… disappointment, as you put it."
Bastard. (Bastard-Bastard-Gorgeous-Bastard.)
I clenched my fist under the table.
"Well, you can also go fuck you-"
"Do you two know each other?" Iruka suddenly inquired next to me, cutting me off and startling me all in one. I had almost forgotten that he was still here. And he looked a bit disturbed, really, his usually warm brown eyes flashing with worry and wonder.
Still, before I could even began to think of a reply, Sasuke beat me to it.
"We just go to the same school."
Perfect confident tone, albeit a bit unnerved. I was the one unnerved.
For some strange reasons, he was now glaring at Kakashi, as if it was his fault. Typical Sasuke-ish, if you want my opinion. Always putting the blame on other people. Something bad happened? No, not his fault. Even if he did it? No, you made him do it. It was as if, every fucking freaking time, he just couldn't…
Damn. But I was rambling, wasn't I?
"Oh!" Iruka suddenly exclaimed happily, oblivious about the visibly tensed answer – he had a thing about ignoring tension. "Naruto, you could have told me about that! I mean, I'm sure there aren't that many Tabernacle around there and…" He must have caught the sort of surprised-offended expression passing on Sasuke's porcelain-like face, because he corrected himself quickly. "No, not because it's not a nice name or anything huh, it's just… unusual?"
The affronted look didn't falter, a twitching of the eye adding to the somewhat horrified face. Iruka's nervousness, however… Let's just say the guy really wanted to make a good impression.
He fidgeted a bit in his seat, thinking furiously.
"Original!" he almost shrieked. He seemed to catch our dubious look however, because he immediately adopted a softer voice. "I was going for original, I mean. And, um…" He gazed around, probably looking for an escape. "Was it your idea, Kakashi?"
A small silence followed the question.
Then, we heard one of the most traumatizing sounds one's could ever make. Kakashi started to laugh. Really, like, the guy had burst into a fit of giggles.
"Huhuhu, his face, huhuhu, really good one!"
He was breathing hard, his hands pressing with difficulty against his ribs in a desperate attempt to calm himself down. His almost-grey hair was moving in sync with his trembling head, giving him the appearance of one crazy guy.
"Huhuhu, he fell, he-he, for it, huhu- OUCH!" he stopped abruptly, and my eyes followed as he seemed to straight away massage his foot under the table, a pained expression painted on his features.
I raised both of my eyebrows, and then nodded wisely to myself when I saw the dangerous glint in Sasuke's obsidian eyes. I could testify, the guy has a mean streak, and a vicious, vicious spike.
"The fuck, Kakashi?" he hissed between gritted teeth. "I told you to stop that fucking joke."
I could see the confusion on Iruka's face, and even I wasn't quite sure to understand.
"Maa, how bitchier could you get, seriously?" (Insert a Kakashi-chuckle here.) "Plus, it was a good one, wasn't it?"
Sasuke sighed, with such a furiously desolated look on his features that you wouldn't have been able to say who the father in this relationship really was. He turned to Iruka.
"Don't mind him and his nonsense", he stated matter-of-factly, almost in business-mode. "My name's not Ta-" he clenched his jaw, as if it was killing him to say it. "Tabernacle", he finally let out with a disgusted face. "I'm Uchiha Sasuke."
Uchiha Sasuke.
Now, it was my turn to be aching.
His name, even his voice, was remaining me too much to bear. Amusing how just a small sentence could remind you of months of relationship, huh? This was a name I'd been thinking about every fucking second since I'd met him, and hearing it for real again after I made it a taboo was truly dreadful. Seriously, months spending time to be sure to avoid him in every corridor of this fucking school, and finally being trapped anyway because my guardian had felt in love with a psycho? Life was deliciously ironic, huh? Almost too ironic.
"Ah? Uchiha Sasuke?" Iruka repeated with this sympathic-conversional tone he usually used when wanting to put someone at ease. "Mmm, now that I think about it, Naruto must have mentioned you once or twice."
A little pause. A white jaw swallowing.
"I'm sure he has."
I quickly diverted my eyes from Sasuke's sardonic ones. Contrarily to the beginning of our past relationship when I could never tell what he was thinking, I had more training now. And his composed face was clearly inwardly commenting something like "for someone who claimed to be in love with me ten times a day, it sure is a positive sign. You mention your pet more than once or twice, and you don't profess your undying love to your pet."
I swear I didn't feel guilty. Nope, not at all. (Or just a tiny little bit, if my slightly reddening cheeks were any indications.)
Well, Kakashi hadn't shown any sign of recognizing me or my name either, so I wasn't the only one blameworthy here. Yet, the almost concerned look he seemed to give at his son when seeing his somewhat tense features made me wonder if he was just really discreet and tactful, and never mentioned anything because of it. No, he couldn't… could he?
And, wait, but… his son?
"Hey, but you two don't have the same last name!" I suddenly blurted out (a bit randomly, I concede), pointing an accusing finger at the strange pair they made. I mean, Kakashi's last name was Hatake. I would have been able to prep myself by a pep talk or a quick suicide had it been Uchiha. So, why…?
Iruka didn't seem as quizzed as me. In fact, he was making that guilty awkward/mortified face he used to put on when he had forgotten to do something. In that case, it was most likely forgetting to share with me this very important bit of information. Fortunately, it seemed to be a pleasure for Kakashi to enlighten me.
"Oh, but that's because technically, the brat isn't my son. I'm his adopted father. Have been since he was eight", he stated proudly, as if he should be rewarded for having been taking care of some kid for so long.
I felt my jaw dropping.
I stiffened and recomposed myself, the guilty feeling from earlier evaporating as easily as vapor.
I wasn't the only one to keep information to myself, it seemed. We had been going out for four months, before our break-up, and Sasuke never bothered to correct me all the times I mentioned his parents worrying about him being out with me, or whatever. My eyes narrowed.
Was our relationship based entirely on lies? Oh, and fuck. I don't care. We're not together anymore anyway.
Still, I couldn't help but feeling betrayed. Even if I didn't talk about my past myself, he knew that my parents were dead. What about his? I didn't even know.
"It must have been a torture, to live with him this long", Iruka joked easily, probably to lighten the mood, as he leaned over the table to take a piece of bread.
Kakashi beamed at him.
"Well, thanks for your concern, little Dolphin. It's true that I do still have some nightmares about him, and-"
"I wasn't speaking to you, Kakashi."
He then chuckled lightly, as Kakashi pretended to be hurt. Those two really made the couple, I thought, and they seemed happy together.
For their sakes, I eventually decided to keep my cool, and go back at my first charming personality, so we could spent the first 'family-moment' they so wanted us to have together.
I just needed to ignore as much as possible Sasuke who was, I realized, the biggest mistake I'd probably ever made.
"Here, big-forehead, here!" I felt Ino waving furiously next to me.
I seriously wanted her to die. Sakura must have shared my thoughts.
"Don't talk that loud, Ino-pig! Damn."
I s'posed from the lips-blobbing-noise I heard that Ino made a face at her, as Sakura sat at our table. Well. They always were so mature.
"Hey, Sa-Sakura-san", a small voice timidly said, and you could hear the uncertainty in her intonation.
Hinata had this shy thing going on for her and, if it usually had a cute side, I found it plain unbearable right now. I randomly had the urge to make her stop stuttering once for good. At least, she wasn't screaming like the rest of this fucking cafeteria. How louder could they get? My head already felt like exploding, I didn't need them to add to the fuss. Dammit.
"Hi to you too Hinat- Ow. What happened to them?"
I swear I could feel the looks on my face. Next to Ino, Shikamaru almost surprised me by being the one to answer, as bored as ever.
"Well, Kiba here got drunk out of his ass and got beat up by a bunch of guys he called out as 'pansies-who-have-fucking-fairies-up-their-asses', and…"
"-How could I know that guys wearing tight panty hoses could fight like the fucking Karate Kid?" Kiba growled, the sound coming out munched because of his face hidden between his arms.
"…and Naruto got- Um… Well, we don't really know what happened to him. He doesn't want to tell."
"And I won't", I mumbled, opening one eyes, before sinking my head between my arms too.
Scratch what I said earlier. I wanted to die.
"Troublesome."
Kiba added a grunt of approving, in the same position as me. I had to say, though, his bruised face was still worse than mine. He had a black eye, a split lip and I swear his nose was bending slightly to the right. Me? Only a bruised cheek. I knew someone hated me up there. Because it just had to fucking mark on my skin (which usually never marked).
I started a bit when a hand touched unexpectedly my shoulder, making me raise my head by reflex. I found myself looking into the bright green eyes of Sakura, as she smiled gently next to me.
"Well? What could have happened to our sunny-boy for him to be brooding with such a dark aura, huh?"
I dropped my head again, hiding it into my sweater. Didn't want to talk about it.
"Mmm, 'm not brooding."
"Suuure! You just got your panties in a bunch."
I suddenly leaned back in my seat, giving a clearly not amused glare to Kiba.
"Ha. Ha. Ha", I deadpanned. "Beware, though, or I'll make you eat those panties. A little birdie told me you've got trouble defending yourself against guys wearing them", I finished, snickering cruelly.
He scowled-glared at me.
"You're so funny, aren't ya? For someone in your position, though, I wouldn't be laughing."
"Kiba", I warned.
He turned to the rest of the table, an evil grin plastered on his canin-like face.
"Wanna know what happened?"
Maybe I should have seen it coming.
"He got beat up by the ice princess himself."
That, was not a good joke. At all. I growled.
"Shut the fuck up, dog-breath."
Unfortunately, it had begun. Well, if you can call 'it' the deep, thick silence that spread on our table. And I just knew that they were all exchanging tense looks over me, wondering what to say, as I settled for gazing down at my untouched plate.
Well, it helped me clearing out something important, though. I would never tell something to Kiba again. Ne-ver.
"Hello, youthful friends! How are you doing, by this great and still young morning?" a voice suddenly yelled enthusiastically, coming toward us. Oh great. It had at least the effect to awake us from this edgy silence.
"Hey, Lee."
"Le-Lee-kun."
"Hi dude."
"We're doing well, you?"
He didn't reply, his smile fading as his impossibly thick black brows furrowed. He glanced at me, then at Kiba, then at the rest of the nervous table. He then leaned forward to Sakura, before saying in a secretly-like fashion; "My lovely blossom, I think something bad happened to our dear friends here."
Way to state the obvious.
"And I think we all want to know what it is", Sakura declared seriously.
I glared at her.
"None of your business."
"Oh, Naruto Uzumaki, it is our business, especially if it concerns that bastard!" Ino claimed immediately, helping her friend.
"You mean Sasuke-kun?" Lee asked conversionally, as he picked up green beans with his fork.
He fidgeted a bit on his seat, though, as he became in less than one instant the receiving end of all our direct gazes. Don't take me wrong, I didn't peg him as a stupid person uh, but he wasn't exactly the brightest one here.
"Don't look at me like that, please. You're making me nervous."
I couldn't help but ask.
"How do you know we're talking about Sa- him?"
Stupidly enough, I just couldn't say his name. It just didn't sound right. Not anymore.
"Huh? So it is him? Well, I just took a guess. You all seem a bit apprehensive and you my youthful friend were the concentration point of this apprehension. Plus, after what happened just now, I made the link quite easily."
It took me five seconds to understand what he had said, and Kiba asked before I could;
" 'After what happened just now?' ", he quoted.
Lee took a mouthful of water to swallow his beans.
"Mm? Oh, I went over Sasuke-kun's table to ask Neji-kun about our science project a few moments ago, and they were talking quite lowly, but I managed to hear Naruto-kun's name in the conversation. Then, Haku-kun and Suigetsu-kun" – I couldn't help but cringe at their names; I'd never liked them anyway – "were glaring daggers at me, something they had stopped doing sometimes after your break-up with Sasuke-kun. It was as if I had done something horrible – I think that would be being your friend. So, as I said, I made the link."
I let myself relax in my seat, sighing with lassitude.
"Fuck", I muttered, before muffling my hair with my hand.
"Seriously, Naruto, you know we're here for you. So tell us what happened", Sakura pleaded softly. I had the suspicious impression to be a mental patient right now, who just survived some tragic events and all.
I glanced at her, before shrugging. After all, why not? "Well, you all know how Iruka got himself a boyfriend, huh?"
Confusion marked their faces – except for Kiba who tilted his head with compassion, as I had already told him the little story earlier this morning, when I gave him a ride.
"Kakashi?" Ino asked.
I nodded.
"Yeah, so last night I was supposed to go to the restaurant with them, to meet Kakashi's 'son'. Well, guess who that turned out to be?"
There was a little pause.
"No!"Sakura suddenly shrieked, before putting her hands on her mouth. "You've got to be kidding me!"
"I wish I was", I mock-glared at her.
She punched my arm.
"You have to be the unluckiest guy I've ever meet", she giggled lightly, and Ino and Hinata were soon joining her in her little outburst.
Shikamaru even deigned raising an eyebrow at me, a little smirk coming onto his mouth.
"Troublesome."
"But how did you get the bruise?" Lee asked, moving his brows up again. I really wished he would stop doing that. It was freaking me out.
But. Anyway.
The giggles faded as they paused altogether to listen to me. I grinned sheepishly, scratching nervously the back of my neck. "Well, I must plead guilty for that one. When Iruka and Kakashi were paying the bill, we were staying outside. And, err… I may have been annoyed at seeing him looking as cool as usual and totally unperturbed, insinuating with his face that I was an idiot. Sooo I may have asked him if 'the stick up his ass could grow because he looked like he had gained a centimeter since last time I'd seen him'. And then… well, he may have punched me. He was never really one to talk."
I stuck my tongue out as Ino and Sakura burst out laughing, as long as Kiba – even if it was the second time he heard it – and Shikamaru, Hinata and Lee chuckled lightly. I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a bit proud.
I didn't add, however, how Kakashi and Iruka came out all angry and how Kakashi had scolded Sasuke as I was being scolded too by Iruka. Even if I was the victim there (he just couldn't have heard me, nuh-uh).
"You're such a smartass", Sakura shook her head.
I shrugged again, grinning mischievously.
"Can't say I'm not."
"B-but, Naruto-kun? Ho-how are y-you going to co-cope with the fa- the fact tha-that he, umm, you're g-gonna see a lo-lot of ea-each other, r-right?" Hinata asked nervously. I felt my smile fading into seriousness.
"Don't really know. I'm gonna follow the wind and all that smart shit."
Sakura nudged me disapprovingly. "No, seriously, Hinata's not wrong. How are you gonna act? Iruka doesn't know about you two, if I recall."
"What do you want me to do? I won't tell 'Ruka, and, err… I'll ignore huh- him."
Then the bell unexpectedly rang, announcing the end of lunch time, and making the arising tension at the table drop. Kiba whined beside me.
"Fuuuuuuuck."
Mathematics sucked. Like, really sucked.
I was currently sitting on the last row of the classroom, next to one of the large windows. Scratch that. I was currently dying on the last row of the classroom, next to one of the large windows. The sun was burning me alive through the pane, and we couldn't close the curtain because some chicks in the middle claimed to be cold or whatever. Never mind, they were now on top of my Black-list.
Next to me was sitting a weird guy, Choji, whom I think was friend with Shika. I didn't really have anything against him, don't get me wrong. But the lesson had now started for thirty-two minutes (yeah, I was grain counting), and the guy had been eating for… thirty-one minutes. You couldn't even begin to understand how the sound of chips cracking under teeth could be incredibly annoying and frustrating.
Crack-Crack-Swallow.
I pulled on my hair. I was gonna commit a homicide. Or suicide.
Moreover, this class was terrifyingly unbearable. The teacher, a certain Mr. Morino, probably graduated with a degree in torture, adding with the one in math. It wasn't possible otherwise. He loved to trick us with his mastermind games, and it was just that. Pure torture.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. Thirty-three minutes. No one to help me. I pursed my lips in annoyance and total boredom, before taking a look around the class. It happened to stop on the very back of one pale ass Uchiha. Pure coincidences, of course. Uh-huh.
Crack-Crack-Swallow.
WHO was I kidding seriously? I glared at Choji next to me, but he didn't seem to take the hint. Then, my eyes went back to their first point of concentration. It wasn't my fault, really, but I just couldn't help but looking at him.
He was totally relaxed in his chair, just two rows in front of me, and if I didn't know him like I knew, I would have thought he was asleep.
I had not stopped thinking about him ever since the eve. And it was always about the same thing; what was he thinking? Did he ever regret-? I shook my head. It was giving me headaches.
Thinking it had been all so great, in the beginning.
Initially, I didn't know him that much. We hang out with different crowds, as they said. It begun when Neji, his friend, started going out with Gaara, who was our friend. It forced our groups to mix together, something which had not worked so well. Juugo and Karin were cool enough, but they weren't the one that had created troubles. Haku and Suigetsu, however, were a different story. The closest friends to Sasuke – they just plain hated me. So when we started spending time together, and I showed more than a simply friendly interest toward him, it had been a bit hard to manage. Because it was a fact: Sasuke listened to them, and trusted them. Trust was a really difficult thing to obtain from Sasuke, and they sure didn't spoke to encourage him to date me. Also, Sasuke himself didn't get along with Kiba, who was my best friend. They didn't vow each other's death either, but, clearly, I couldn't stay with the two together, and Kiba wasn't one to listen to me when I had something Sasuke-related to talk about. Though at this time, I always had something Sasuke-related to speak about. Needless to say he was ecstatic when I told him about the break-up. He babbled for hours about how he knew it was gonna end like that and that Sasuke had always been a jerk and all.
So yeah, I guess we were doomed from the start.
But, although I was really angry at Sasuke for everything he put me through, and I somewhat hated him now, I couldn't help but still think that my four months with him had probably been some of the best in my whole life. Even if the last weeks had been hell, with all the tension and the lies.
And thinking that was making me crazy. Making me angry like nothing else. Because I knew it was true.
Crack-Crack-Swallow. Little burp.
I don't know what came upon me, but suddenly it felt too much. So I tear a shit of paper out of my notebook, and I rolled it into a ball. Before I knew what I was doing, I threw it.
Right at Sasuke's head.
He didn't budge.
Somehow, I knew he knew it was me, but decided to act mature. I suddenly had the random urge to act, as for me, very childishly.
And so it began.
I snatched every pages of my rough book, made balls of them, and threw them at him. Several students turned around but I merely shrugged at them. I kept on throwing. And Sasuke kept on ignoring me. It made my blood boil.
"Mr. Uzumaki? Except if you want to stay here after class and learn about the wonders of the job of a cleaner, I shall suggest you stop throwing balls to rhyme. Understood?" Morino asked, writing on the black board and not even sparing me a glance.
I puffed my cheeks and flipped him off.
"And you should stop your insulting gestures too, or it will be worse than simple detention."
Wow. Did the guy have eyes on his back, or somethin'? It freaked me out, I had to say.
Before I could even think of a thing to reply, the girl in front of me turned round on her chair and passed me a note. I raised my eyebrows, and she pointed at a very familiar head with her pen. I swallowed, before opening the note.
'Calling you an idiot would be an insult to stupid people. You even failed at throwing balls. I must applaud.'
I looked up to find myself engulfed in two obsidian eyes. He was fucking mocking me.
His fine lips curled up in his familiar trademark disdainful smirk, as he mouthed the words "Nice bruise", giving a pointed look at my left cheek.
I smirked too.
War had begun.
TBC