Summary: 'I love you,' Naruto said in his head.He and Sasuke had this… thing going, for lack of a better description. It was complicated.
Rating: M
Pairing: Sasuke/Naruto
Warnings: Yaoi, or boy-love. Take the rating seriously.
Disclaimer: Writers lie, just like your parents. Yes, that does mean these characters and the anime/manga from which they were taken do not belong to me.
Author's Note: The morning after I posted chapter two, I woke up to an inbox with twenty-four unread messages. Twenty-two were from . Ten were story alert adds, three were favorite story adds, two were author alert adds, and one was a favorite author add. Six were review alerts. All of these were received in less than twenty-four hours. I have gotten a few more emails over the course of the morning, while writing this chapter. You guys really, really rock. This is the first fan fiction I have written in a long time, and the first I have posted here. I feel so welcomed, and thank you all.
Sakura watched as her teammates threw flurries of fists and kicks at each other. They had been waiting for Kakashi-sensei to arrive at the bridge, and as per usual, he had not been there at the promised time. The pink-haired girl knew not exactly why the two boys were fighting before her. All that she was aware of was the tension, the anger in their eyes and the hurt they seemed to be carrying.
She had given up on trying to separate her teammates. She was diligent in her attempts at first, in maybe the first ten or twenty minutes. Although there were no hand seals and no chakra used, the boys were utterly feral, more emotionally-charged than a menstruating kunoichi.
Sakura was suddenly aware of Kakashi-sensei, sitting next to her on the railing of the bridge. He did not interrupt Sasuke and Naruto, but merely watched as though he were a spectator at a show.
"Kakashi-sensei," Sakura said, whining slightly, "aren't you going to stop them?"
"Why should I?" was the teacher's response.
"Because they're fighting!" the pink-haired girl insisted.
"Or, they're training in taijutsu," Kakashi-sensei pointed out. His student sighed, hope lost. Giving in slightly, he asked, "do you know what set them off?"
"No," Sakura shook her head to her words. "They were here before me, talking about something. And then they… just… They kind of started swinging at the same time."
Neither boy was bothered by the conversation, or even troubled themselves to take notice. Both were caught up in blocking, dodging, jumping, kicking, punching. Kakashi watched with mild impression displayed, Sakura with worry written all over.
It was silent for a moment, nothing other than the cut of limbs through the air and almost heavy breathing meeting any ears. Kakashi got up, signaling for the only student watching him to follow. Sakura obliged, eyes over her shoulder until she had followed her sensei far enough away that it might as well be a memory now, filed away in her mind.
"One student is less work than three," Kakashi stated with amusement. "Let's start, shall we?"
The sun rose higher in the sky as their seemingly random fight continued on through the morning. They had been going without pause for a few hours, when finally they reached a mutual ceasefire at about noon. The two boys sat, backs turned to each other, on the ground to catch up on their oxygen intake for a moment. When they stood, neither looked at each other.
"Come to my place, Sunday?" Sasuke made it both a statement and a question.
"Yeah," Naruto answered, nodding although it wouldn't be seen.
When he turned around, his teammate was gone.
"I saw you fighting with Sasuke," Iruka commented, sitting down next to Naruto, whom he had found at the Ichiraku ramen stand.
"Uh, yeah," the blonde replied through a mouthful of noodles.
"You guys are much better at it than you were in your academy days," Iruka said, as a compliment.
Naruto slurped the last of his bowl, wiping the drops of broth off of his mouth with the backside of his hand. "You know what, Iruka-sensei?" he started, "it still feels like we're in the academy sometimes. It's all so fu—" Naruto caught the cuss word before he said it to the teacher, "stinking petty."
Iruka nodded, like he somehow understood. He planned to find out, as he ordered a bowl for himself.
By the time he had broken his chopsticks free of their bond, the blonde had up and left.
Sakura was sitting outside of his door when he arrived.
"I figured, you know," she stumbled with her words, "you would be easier to talk to than Sasuke." Naruto shoved his key into the door. "What happened this morning?"
"Nothing," Naruto said softly, irritation seeping through his voice as his door unlocked and allowed itself to be opened.
"You can tell—" Sakura stared at the closed door in front of her face. "Me," she finished in vain.
The rest of the week went by without disturbance, and Kakashi-sensei trained all three of his students together. Iruka didn't see Naruto at Ichiraku, or anywhere else for that matter, and never got his questions answered.
Sakura received almost an identical treatment from Sasuke as she had gotten from Naruto when she used a different approach to ease her curiosity.
"Sasuke, just tell me. I just want to know what happened," she argued.
A simple, cool, apathetic, "no," was the only answer the pink-haired girl obtained.
When Sunday night rolled around, Naruto found himself asking in his head if he should even carry out their plans. It was obvious that the encounters meant little to nothing to his teammate. It was all carnal to the other boy, and Naruto though he had accepted that a while ago.
Shortly after questioning himself, he was walking through the dark Konoha streets. The blonde stared up at the Uchiha's residence. Because, after all, it meant something to him.
Sasuke paced around his room, wishing he could slap himself. How many times in the past fortnight had he met with Naruto? It was too much, too often, and he knew it. He knew his ridiculous emotions were causing him to damn anything he had going for him, and yet he didn't know how to stop himself.
The Uchiha anxiously looked out his window, inspecting the street in front of his eyes. He began to wonder if the blonde had stood him up, and wouldn't show. That idea brought upon him a strangely large volume of the new, difficult emotion he had been getting used to recently.
Then, he saw the approaching head of golden spikes stop before his house. Sasuke closed the curtain, before he was seen looking around and waiting like a hopeless romantic. With whatever control he could muster, he forced himself to walk slowly to the door when he heard the knock.
"Hey," he greeted. Naruto nodded to him, walking inside.
Another Author's Note: I am really quite horrible at writing fight scenes, if you haven't noticed. That's actually the reason I left it to taijutsu, heh. I would greatly appreciate constructive criticism on this in the reviews, if anyone has some tips or anything.
I had a really good idea of where I was going with the first and second chapters. This was meant to, hopefully, elaborate on the situation the two are in. I do not yet know what will come in chapter four, and I think this will be over in a few more updates. Where would you lovely readers like to see things go? Should there be a happy ending, or otherwise?