AN: The time period is 2031, not 2021 as I said in the last chapter.


It was unnaturally bright when Sasuke opened his eyes. He groaned in irritation. "The fuck…" he rolled over in his bed and sat up, rubbing his eyes. It wasn't unnaturally bright, he realized, sitting up. It was…day time. His mouth fell open. He hadn't woken up during the daytime, this kind of day time, when the sun was actually in the East, in years. He listened for odd sounds, and heard nothing. He wasn't hungry, he didn't need to take a piss.

Why was he awake?

Then he felt something in his stomach that he hadn't felt just as long as he hadn't seen the blasted morning sun (which he clawed the blinds down on). He felt excited. He'd woken up because he was excited. Because for the first time in a long time something was different about his life. He lightly tapped his ear, feeling his fresh piercing a little sore.

He made a mental note to clean it later, before heading out into the living room to make sure the humanoid boy he was harbouring hadn't destroyed his house or something. The boy, Naruto was curled up on the couch, fast asleep. He had shrouded himself the blankets Sasuke had begrudgingly given him. His butt was sticking out the back of the blankets. Sasuke knew he could make this one of those super cute-ass moments and pull the blanket down all tender-like, before realizing he was totally in love with the cute little being underneath it.

He rolled his eyes before scuffling to the kitchen. Yeah fucking right. He dug blindly around in the cabinets, searching for coffee. He dragged the box out of the back of the cabinet, getting out a mug. He opened the tab on the side of the box and dumped 2 little brown pills into the mug. The instructions said one, but he liked his java strong. In a few seconds, the pills split and the room was filled with the smell of coffee, as the cup filled up with the steamy liquid, all on its own.

Sasuke thought about coffee from the olden days for a second, all the work people did to drink it. He shook his head. He barely could muster the energy to drop the tabs into a cup, the idea of boiling water in a water-boiling container, and all sorts of other complicated, dangerous steps, was one that blew his mind. The struggles that people had gone through.

He sat there in the darkness of the kitchen and sipped. What was he going to do with the boy? He hadn't really thought about it. He assumed he was self-sufficient. He wasn't a humanoid, but he definitely acted one. 'Anyways, it doesn't matter. I've no time to babysit.' Sasuke thought.

There was a loud thud from the living room. Sasuke assumed it meant the boy had woken up. He stood up slowly and shuffled to the kitchen doorway, still not sufficiently woken up. Naruto was on the floor, all tangled up in the blankets he'd been cocooned in just seconds before. Sasuke stared at him as he made the worst attempts, ever, of getting out of them. He'd never seen anyone do anything so badly before. It was a full five minutes before Naruto had freed himself from the captive sheets.

'Take care of me?' Sasuke thought, shaking his head. 'He can't even defend himself against linen.' Naruto sprang up after his success, breathing in and out heavily. "Good job." Sasuke said, eyeing him. Was this kid for real?

Naruto smiled. "Thank you." He said, jutting his chin out and picking up the blankets.

"So…do you…eat?" Sasuke asked. He still wasn't really sure what this boy….was. He was human, right? He thought so. But he was really…really good looking, and what was up with those whiskers? Still, he was nothing like those perfect humanoids Sasuke saw advertised online. So Sasuke assumed he ate.

Naruto nodded, moving towards Sasuke. "I can make you something, master." He offered. Sasuke lifted his hand. "Ok, don't call me that." He said. "And you don't need to do anything for me. In fact, you shouldn't do anything for me. Don't bother me."

He jabbed a finger back at the kitchen. "Make yourself some food, and eat it. Stay out of my way." He gestured to the living room. "This is your zone, remain here." Naruto looked around the tiny living room. It fit one plain couch and a side table with a single lamp on it. It opened into the kitchen; otherwise it was an enclosed space, save for the door leading to the hall, which just lead outside.

"Ok." Naruto said after a few seconds. He looked confused, but he had nothing more to say. Sasuke shrugged and headed to his studio. He had work to do, sticking it to the man didn't mean he had any time to waste.

It wasn't until hours later that he re-emerged from his workspace for sustenance. He shuffled to the kitchen and spotted Naruto in the living room, curled up on the couch and looking at the plain white wall in front of him.

Whatever.

He walked into the kitchen and yanked the fridge open, eyeing what was inside. A box with packets that turned into sandwiches, tiny frozen boxes of expandable pizza. He scratched the back of his neck, looking at his ample food stock. Despite himself, he headed to the kitchen door. "What did you eat?" he asked.

Naruto jumped. "Nothing." He said.

"I told you to eat."

"You told me to stay here."

Sasuke blinked. What had he just heard in this kid's voice? It sounded like defiance, a little bit. But that couldn't be right, at all. Humanoids weren't ever defiant. Scratch that. People weren't defiant. Especially not to him. People were spineless, empty things that spent their days being useless and ridiculous. The only people that had any worth were children, and then they grew up and all their goodness and creativity was sucked up.

Defiance had died in the early 2000's.

"You can go into the kitchen." He said slowly, still uncertain about what he thought he might've heard. Naruto stood up, excitedly and headed to the kitchen, and Sasuke watched him, his curiosity sparked. It was really bothering him, the question as to whether Naruto was human or not. He needed to know, he didn't know why.

Naruto looked around the kitchen, proceeding to open up the cabinets and fridge. "Empty." He announced, after a while of searching. "There's soup." Sasuke said begrudgingly. Obviously, human or not, this boy was defective. Those stunning eyes on him weren't made for much by way of seeing.

"Empty." Naruto repeated. This time Sasuke was sure he heard it. Defiance. Defiance and stubbornness. Two things, people of 2031 didn't have. He opened the cupboards and pointed to a little box with pills that made lemonade. He picked it up and shook it. Sasuke shrugged. Most of his food was quick-fix. He didn't have time for the old-fashioned stuff from 2010. Plus, that stuff was expensive and hard to find.

He'd once seen some, a frozen chicken as big as his head, in this health food store. They called it 'organic.' There were no instructions on it whatsoever, even if he wanted to eat olden food, how could he? Naruto had the most distressed look on his face. His nose scrunched up. "No food." He said.

Sasuke scowled. This boy was being irritating. He opened a cabinet and pulled out a packet, sticking it into the microwave. In a few seconds, he pulled it out. "Here." He opened the packet. Naruto gingerly took the packet and looked inside. The face he made was one of pure disgust.

"What is it?" he asked.

Sasuke shrugged. He wasn't sure. "It's…potato's…and chicken." He said. "I think." Why was this boy making him doubt himself. "It doesn't matter, it's food, eat."

"No thank you."

"What?"

"No thank you."

Sasuke eyed Naruto. "You mean no, thank you." He said. 'No, thank you', and 'no thank you' were two very different things. 'No, thank yo'u meant—oh hey, not now but thanks for offering. 'No thank you' meant—I literally have zero thanks to give you, you piece of shit. It really, really sounded like Naruto meant the second.

"Ok." Naruto said, non-committingly, handing the packet back. Sasuke peeked inside. It did look unappealing. He knew he was reading deep into the nuances of everything Naruto said, but the boy interested him on a biological level (for instance, the question, what WAS he?). He didn't interact with people much, but he was still very good at figuring them out, and he enjoyed doing that.

He couldn't figure Naruto out, not yet.

"I have nothing else." He said. "You'll just have to go hungry."

Naruto paused. There was a look in his eyes, no, behind his eyes, that look, and Sasuke couldn't stop looking at it. He wanted to tilt the boys chin up and stare. He swore he saw it, defiance, defiance, pure defiance and fire, like he had never seen before.

But it couldn't be. Funcorp produced robotic creatures, made to please customers to utter hell. If Naruto truly was a Funcorp product—and by the glowing light Sasuke had seen the night before—then he had no room for such intense emotions such as defiance.

Still, he had to be sure. "Are you ok with starving?" he said sharply.

Naruto looked at him and there was a pause. "Yes, master." He said. The look was gone; it was replaced with that sickly-sweet, obedient look. Sasuke's heart fell. What had he been expecting? He knew, he just wanted to SEE someone different from the rest of the world so badly that he was making up emotions in robot toy people. "Ok, then go sit in your chair." He said, losing all interest and heading back to his studio.

He only ever saw emotion in the eyes of his illustrations.