A/N: Thank you for all your reviews. Here's another chapter. I was going to change the rating and include some heat, but I guess I'd just leave it a T for now. So here's a toned down version of it.
Note: This chapter has SasuNaru (or NaruSasu).
Chapter 3:
His Other Half
Naruto crept in quietly and entered the kitchen, where he could hear the sounds of someone washing the dishes. It was Hinata, and she was humming to herself as she worked. He hugged her from behind and she jumped, dropping the sponge and jerking away.
"Oh, Naruto," she says, hand on her heart. "You scared me."
"Some things never change," Naruto murmured, trying to take her back in his arms, but she shook him off again.
"Naruto… I-I thought you weren't coming back." She said, not meeting his eyes.
"Now why would I do that? And come here already, Hinata."
Grabbing her arm, he felt goose bumps prickling her skin. She pulled away abruptly. "Stop it, Naruto," she pleaded.
Naruto looked at her in dismay. Why was she behaving like this? Didn't his past confession work?
"Hinata… What's wrong? Don't you love me anymore?"
"Naruto-kun… I told you…" Her eyes wandered to his trousers and immediately looked away, sensing his apparent arousal.
"What did you tell me?" he demanded to know.
"I-I'll always love you. But… It doesn't matter."
"So what does?" Naruto cried, his heart breaking. Hinata hadn't changed her mind at all. Had nothing changed?
"I-I just can't live like this Naruto. It was one thing l-loving you and not having you. It's another that I h-have you and..." she trailed off, looking intently at the hem of her apron, which she was continuously squeezing and twirling.
"I don't understand," he said weakly.
"I can't be taken for granted all the time Naruto!" Her voice raised and her crystal eyes sprung with tears.
Naruto looked at her in alarm. His arms automatically sprung up to hold her but the strong feelings she was suddenly radiating had him hesitate and he pulled them back down.
"Just think how you'd feel if our positions were reversed," she cried. "Think how it would feel when you've spent your whole life knowing you have a duty to your clan, yet still loving an outsider. Risking the wrath of my family. Following you and trying to catch up with you, because I admired your resilience and your ninja way. Having Neji die just so we could share a future together. He knew he didn't have a place in my heart and never will after all that happened when we were younger, yet he cared about me enough that he was willing to sacrifice everything so that I could be happy. He held no grudge against you because he knew you were the only one who could make me happy! And now after so many sacrifices and having gone through so much, nothing has changed."
"No!" Naruto objected. "That's not true at all! I do care about you Hinata. I swear I'd do anything for you."
"No Naruto," she says sadly. "You would not do anything for me. I… I have accepted this for a while now. I…I'm not… I can never be… Uchiha Sasuke."
She wanted to believe she had just misunderstood, but she had seen them. And she kept on seeing them.
She had been carrying their baby in a stroller, humming to herself as she walked. She started looking around and saw Naruto and Sasuke in the park, under the shade of a large, cherry blossom tree. Naruto had his head on Sasuke's lap, arms behind him. She started to approach them from behind to say hi, but stopped short when she had heard him say, "They will never make a queer man Hokage."
She did not want to believe the depth of those words, but she began to notice different things. The lingering hugs, a touch which stayed too long, Naruto's inefficiency when he lay with her and the excuses he made, the way he indulged in self-blame when he couldn't satisfy her needs and brooded, turning his back on her and shuddering when she attempted to touch him.
Hinata still had not wanted to believe it, but Naruto kept spending more and more time at his office and coming home later and later. She made dinner and, as Boruto was asleep, went to deliver it to him herself. Her blood ran cold when she heard Sasuke's voice emanating from within. She turned away abruptly and made her way back home, heart beating rapidly. At the breakfast table next day, Naruto had said told her nonchalantly there can be no man like Uchiha Sasuke, with a kind of glimmer in his eyes. He told her about Boruto undertaking Sasuke's training, and how their child admired him as well. That had been the end of her patience and her heart. She had tried to stick around for her children and the baby who was too young to grow up without a father figure, but enough was enough.
She admitted that she also had taken solace under Kiba's arms and had cried endlessly while he consoled her. Kiba had offered her a place at his compound. Hinata admitted that she had always taken advantage of Kiba's feelings towards her.
Naruto was dumbstruck. In the previous timeline, his absence had caused Kiba and Hinata to grow closer. Here it was again, stemming from a similar root.
"I will tell no one," she said softly. "But... I can't be with you, Naruto. Please. J-just leave."
Naruto needed some answers. He hoped that Sasuke would provide them.
He went to Sasuke's apartment, and tapped lightly on the door, knowing that Sasuke is a light sleeper. Sasuke had moved to this apartment so he could be closer to the Hokage's office and that hadn't changed. Almost at once, the door opened and an alert Sasuke with a loose kimono and groggy eyes looked at him.
"Naruto," he said intensely, closing the door behind him and leaning back against it. "What're you doing here?" He hissed.
"Sasuke... I need to... know a few things."
Sasuke studied him for a moment, then leaned in to whisper in his ear.
"Let's get out of here. Better not wake her up."
Sasuke took his hand and led him, running together towards the Hokage's office. With their speed, they reached it in less than five minutes. Naruto unlocked the door and Sasuke shuffled in behind him, hurriedly locking the door from inside. Before Naruto could think of where to start or why Sasuke was acting so suspiciously, Sasuke grabbed his head by his hair and pulled him towards him roughly. Their lips almost smashed against each other. Sasuke's tongue soon began probing inside his mouth, and pretty soon they were both making out as if they were dying of thirst, only coming up occasionally for air.
Naruto's heart was hammering. He didn't want to, but physically engaging him with Sasuke excited him to no end, and he couldn't bring himself to tear away.
Naruto woke up by the daylight streaming in from the window they hadn't pulled down the blinds of in their hurry. He felt strangely contented. Sasuke's arms were wrapped around him as they lay together on the futon Naruto had tiredly pulled out. He wasn't sure when he fell asleep. He felt electricity radiating off of Sasuke's fingertips wherever he had touched Naruto's body, and he was sure it wasn't any of his electrical jutsus. Sasuke had been strangely submissive, letting Naruto explore while he threw his head back and groaned each time Naruto hit a sensitive spot, clinging his short hair tightly before forcing him down on the floor when he could no longer control. They took turns being the dominant party.
When had it come to this? Naruto wondered. He and Sasuke always harbored feelings for each other, and they had both always known. It was one of the reasons he could never let go of him and risked his life and soul for him. But never had he imagined they'd ever dig out their buried passion. Naruto thought it was just a boyish crush which would go away in time. It wasn't weird. Ino had once told him she had felt the same way for Sakura, and they had actually practiced their passion as well. The rivals in love had practiced kissing on each other so they would be good at it when they first kissed a boy. It was a phase everyone went through and he was no different.
"It happens. Everyone has a gay crush. The fact that you still think about boning Sakura and secretly fantasize about what it'd be like to hold and drown in Tsunade-sama's chest like the rest of the world pretty much proves that you're just in your experimental phase," she had concluded matter-of-factly.
Caressing Sasuke's naked chest and Adam's apple, he wondered if Sasuke had ever experimented as a boy. They had both shared their first kiss together, and their feelings had steadily developed, while they continued to deny it to themselves. Through this growing phase, he wondered if Sasuke ever thought about another male in this way, and felt strangely jealous. He intended to spend some time here in this timeline and find some answers. He decided to play along with this strange, intoxicating relationship he had with Sasuke.
"Sasuke," he said in a low tone.
"Hm?" Sasuke mumbled without opening his eyes, still breathing softly on his face.
"I've always wondered... Has there ever been... Another guy?"
"Mmm... Never had the time to think about it," he replied, still half asleep.
"What about when you were... Away?"
"I only ever fucked Karin then," he replied, moving closer, eyes still closed. "Not that it meant anything. There was no one else."
Naruto was silent for awhile, lost in thoughts. What would it be like, to have a life with Sasuke so close to him?
"Naruto," Sasuke said. Naruto looked to see he had opened his eyes slightly. He pulled two fingers up and poked him between his brows, almost exactly like Itachi did to him.
"You're frowning. It doesn't suit you to think so much... Usuratonkachi."
Naruto smiled beside himself.
"That's better," Sasuke said, eyes closing again. "Never change, Naruto."
