=How To Fall In Love With A Dobe 101=

It was inevitable that as soon as the words were out of Sasuke's mouth, both his and Naruto's cell phones would ring - loud Star Wars theme clashing terribly with 'Victims of Love' by Good Charlotte. "Delayed text from Sakura," the blonde murmured, flipping open his phone. Still shaking from the nerves with the confession he hadn't gotten the chance to say, Sasuke reached for his own and glanced down at the number.

Speak of the devil and she will appear - it was Sakura. Thoroughly annoyed by his pink haired interruption, he hit the 'on' button and pressed the receiver to his ear. "What?" he asked with a grimace.

"Sasuke-kun, you have to come quick - Naruto's apartment is...!" The last of her words were drowned out by Naruto's own loud exclamation of "HOLY SHIT MY APARTMENT'S ON FIRE!"

You know, Sasuke hadn't always been so introverted. Once upon a time, before the massacre of his family, he'd been an ordinary (albeit still angst filled) little kid. He used to go get ice cream with Itachi, cling to his mother, and it had taken an especially long time to break him from his pacifier - a fact which now embarrassed him whenever, for some random reason he was reminded of it.

Sasuke had actually met Naruto Uzumaki for the first time just two days before his family was killed, though he'd forgotten about the encounter for a long time afterward, since he'd been so traumatized by Itachi's betrayal. Nevertheless, Sasuke eventually remembered, and afterward, his attraction toward Naruto had been subtle and gradual at first.

Sasuke supposed that when he though about it, he should have seen the 'signs' of his questionable sexuality growing up. The biggest influence over that part of his life had been his brother, who'd enjoyed painting his nails and dressing him up in their mothers clothing whenever he could get away with it.

The very first time he met Naruto, Sasuke was wandering on his own after school. He'd been unwilling to go home right away because, well, every small kid has the irrational urge to rebel against their parents if they know they can get away with it. He wasn't really thinking about one thing in particular at the time - if he had been, he couldn't recall it now. Suddenly, he'd seen the flash of bright yellow hair like he'd never seen before, as a miniature version of the dobe that was Naruto Uzumaki ran past, grinning wildly. Sasuke, not having the sharingan at the time, has whipped his head around, but had been unable to keep up with the blonde's movements - there was no sign of that yellow hair again anywhere.

That was when suddenly a mob (or at least, what seemed a mob to a very small Sasuke Uchiha at the time) of angry men went running past as well, cursing loudly and yelling for somebody to wait. And even though Sasuke hadn't known Naruto's name at the time, he'd somehow known that the one they were calling for had been the boy with that shockingly blonde hair.

So, acting on complete impulse, Sasuke decided to get himself involved in the situation. He wanted to rebel, remember? Besides, he was sure that he could find that blonde boy easier than those stupid adults could. Sasuke knew people his age. It would be easy.

He turned to walk in the direction that that blonde streak had gone, at a much slower pace than the angry mob of men, stopping to look rather than rushing past all the good hiding spots. The thing about adults - when they chased someone, they didn't really consider the fact that there were many more places that a small child could hide, as opposed to other adults. Sasuke glanced into a nearby alleyway, and promptly walked over to the Dumpster there, and opened the lid. When he peered inside, he found shockingly blue eyes - nearly every bit as shocking as the yellow hair - peering right back at him.

"What are you doing?" Sasuke asked, simply curious. Of course he didn't really think it all that strange that the boy was hiding in a Dumpster - it was just a matter of course.

"Shh!" the blonde said insistently, and took a moment to glance around the outside of his hiding place. "Get in!" he whispered, lifting the lid a little higher for Sasuke.

And of course Sasuke, being the kid that he was, simply glanced around before climbing up into the trash collector himself. "Jeez," the blonde had huffed, and his impatience was disdain for Sasuke's awkward clambering.

Once safely inside, the chibi Uchiha scrunched his nose in disgust. "Ew," he said. Now that the lid was shut, only a dim crack of light shown in on the two of them, and Sasuke found himself a bit smothered by the heavy smell of garbage. "So why were those guys chasing you?" he asked, not bothering to whisper now.

"Shh... I took this." And Naruto pulled out a folded paper from inside his orange jacket, and unfolded it to reveal a provocative shot of a woman in a bikini, tanned skin shimmering suggestively. (Because, yes, even as a seven year old, Naruto had been a slight bit of a perv, and yes, even then Naruto had worn orange).

Sasuke stared down at the poster for a moment, perfectly oblivious as to why the other boy would want something like that. "Why would you steal something like that?" he asked honestly, scrunching his nose up a little again. What was so special about a woman in a bathing suit?

And that was the infamous first meeting of Sasuke and Naruto -- not that Sasuke had remembered it until much, much later. It was true that he and Naruto attended the same school, but not even the recognizable blonde hair and bright blue eyes could jog his memory once they eventually had an actual class together. By that time, Sasuke had gone through far too much to remember those small sort of things that had happened during happier times.

When had it happened? When had he noticed Naruto again? When had he fallen in love with the dobe?

There wasn't a distinctive point in time that he could remember. He'd had classes with Naruto, he'd known of Naruto, and Naruto had been very loud and very annoying for a very long time. It was around the time of their first year in middle school, and Sasuke had been nervous and jittery about attending school in a new building, with older kids. Being nervous usually made him more aware, and it just seemed like one day he happened to realize that he paid an awful lot of attention to the other boy. Slowly, but surely, the realization came to him that there was something about Naruto - something that stirred Sasuke, making him sad and wanting to laugh all at the same time.

It had taken a year or two to realize just how deep that 'something' of his went. As mentioned before, Sasuke was very much aware of the fact that he was crazily and helplessly in love with Naruto by the time that he and Sakura became friends. Another good point about having the pink haired girl for a friend was the fact that, at the time, Sakura had had Naruto wrapped around her finger. As much as she wanted Sasuke for herself, and as much as she had known that Naruto wanted her, she had talked to the blonde boy for him, had pointed Sasuke out.

That was when Naruto's irrational anger had flared, and the blonde declared that he and Sasuke were to be rivals. Sasuke himself hadn't been sure if he should be more depressed or incredulous at that. What had he really done to deserve something like that from a guy who'd never paid any attention to him before?

Life had been hell for Sasuke after that - or would have been, if Naruto's persistent attempts at sizing him up had not made him feel so important. The blonde was finally noticing him and paying attention to him for once - even if it was out of supposed hate, Sasuke was alright with that. Besides, Naruto's struggles to 'beat' him had been quite amusing.

The First Attempt

Naruto's initial plan had been to sneak something nasty into Sasuke's ramen - but that idea had been thrown out the window when he'd made the appalling discovery that Sasuke didn't eat ramen. (Sasuke had learned all this later on, from Sakura). So, apparently Sasuke's 'blasphemous' act against ramen had angered the blonde boy even more, and he'd decided to go to the extremes.

It had started with a prank phone call, which would have freaked Sasuke out - had he not heard what had sounded like a bunch of snickering in the background. A few days later, when he'd gotten the full scoop from Sakura, his pink haired friend had told him that Naruto had had their classmates Kiba and Shikimaru helping him out with the devilish plan that night. See, Naruto had still been absolutely smitten with the Haruno girl back then, and would have spilled his guts out to her about anything.

About an hour after the phone call, Sasuke's power abruptly went out. Too bad for Naruto, Sasuke was a genius - although, it didn't really take a genius to go out to the fuse box and flip the switches back on.

The Second Attempt(s?)

For a while - seeing as Naruto was none too clever when it came to things like devilishly sneaky plans - the fox boy simply reverted to tired old childish pranks. Spit wads, paper balls, tying ropes across the hallway floor so that Sasuke might trip... you name it. He tried every trick in the book, and somehow stupidly managed to never quite catch Sasuke off guard. It was comical really - and once the fangirls found out about it....

Well, let's just say that Naruto came to school the next day looking as if he'd been mauled by a large angry animal, and all his little shenanigans had stopped rather abruptly after that.

The Third Attempt

For those who believe the clichéd line "third time's the charm" -- they're wrong. Unless you consider Naruto's entire plan completely backfiring and thoroughly embarrassing him as 'charming.' The entire affair was quite amusing, even to Sasuke, who was nearly stressed to his limit at this point, despite all the attention he was getting from his dobe (albeit negative attention...).

Apparently the blonde's plan had been to literally bait Sasuke with porn -- which would explain the randomly placed naughty magazine he'd found lying at the foot of his locker one day, attached to a clearly visible string. He'd stared rather incredulously when the string pulled, and the magazine scooted about a foot away before stopping again. Sasuke's eyes tried to follow the thin string, in hopes of seeing who or what was at the other end of it, but through the crowd of students filing in there was no chance of seeing the source of it from where he was standing.

The magazine pulled a little more, as if taunting him, and a few people were stopping to stare as well by then, with expressions every bit as confused (and some of them amused) as his was. Finally the magazine took off at full speed, and, shutting his locker, Sasuke followed the thing. He was drawn to it out of simple curiosity, though he carefully made sure to keep his eyes off of the graphic pictures covering the front of it.

People stopped to stare, some laughing a little, as he walked at a leisurely pace, trailing along behind the speeding pornography. Really, it was not as if he had much trouble discerning in which direction the thing had gone - it left a clear path through the crowd of suddenly very confused people every time it zipped by. That's when Sakura came into the picture. "Sasuke-kun?" she had asked. Like everyone else around, She had seen the magazine that had sped past, and was now glancing up to see her angsty friend following unhurriedly after it. His face had been screwed up in determination and slight bewilderment, and with that look, she immediately knew that something was up.

"Did you see...?" she asked, trailing off and pointing the way the thing had gone.

"It was at my locker," he said flatly, still walking along as the pink haired girl stepped up with him. "Then it just... began to.... Hey. Where'd it go?"

The path in the now laughingly bemused crowd had closed up, and for a moment, absolutely Sasuke was positive that they had just lost the thing, when suddenly Sakura shouted, "Follow that porn!" and dashed off after it.

Staring after her, perplexed, Sasuke let out a low chuckle and kept on walking. The day was turning out to be eventful, if nothing else.

Eventually, at the end of the rainbow (so-to-speak) they found a sulky looking Naruto Uzumaki, being thoroughly chewed out by an angry Iruka-sensei, who happened to be holding the now confiscated magazine as if it were a snake that might suddenly decide to bite. No one else would probably think it, but Sasuke had always been rather fond of his middle school teacher, Iruka. The man was as bashful as Sasuke pretended not to be, and he had sometimes spent some time alone with Sasuke, either after school or during those times whenever the Uchiha refused to join in with whatever the rest of the class was doing. Iruka, unlike the other teachers however, had never been pressing or overbearing at all. He'd just smiled and talked about simple things, and in some short moments of deep insight, had given Sasuke small pieces of advice that the Uchiha would not soon forget.

Anyway, Naruto had never really explained exactly what he'd planned to do after the whole 'baiting' bit - not even to Sakura, who'd pleaded with her womanly ways. That was alright though -- the dobe had been being clever, and that was a scary thing when it came to the hyperactive Naruto Uzumaki.

There had been this once, some time after they'd first started high school, when Sasuke had made his own attempt at settling things. He'd decided on it - he would gather up the guts, and have a serious talk with Naruto. He'd try to get the dobe to see that there was really no reason for the two of them to be so-called 'rivals,' and that still claiming to be so was ridiculous. Mostly he did it out of Sakura's insistence, because without her there shoving his own weaknesses down his throat every time he turned around, he probably wouldn't have even considered it.

Sasuke had had no trouble at all in catching Naruto alone. Though the blonde still constantly claimed, vehemently and unreasonably loudly, that he hated Sasuke, the two of them had still managed to spend an awful lot of time with each other back then. It was odd, and somewhat contradicting, but they were on the same "team" as one another, and so they were pushed together often. On this particular day, Sakura had feigned a sprained ankle so that she could escape to the nurse's office, and leave the two alone together. You know, she still sometimes claimed that Sasuke "owed her one" for that, because at her false cries of pain, that weird guy Rock Lee had burst in with some strange, drawn-out monologue about the 'springtime of youth' and 'the tragedies that befall us all.' He'd then proceeded by carrying Sakura bridal-style all the way to the nurse himself.

However, once the two of them were alone, Sasuke's plans went awry just as quickly and smoothly as Naruto's had. He'd tried talking to the dobe - but then Naruto had kept interrupting and needlessly insulting him. Eventually Sasuke had just ended up blurting out "I give up!" He'd relented to Naruto (though technically he'd never been against the guy in the first place), saying "you win," because he'd thought that that was what the Kyuubi boy wanted. He'd thought it would at least satisfy him somewhat. But instead Naruto had then begun accusing Sasuke of "being a prick" and "playing mind games." So, Naruto had continued to hate him, and from that day onward Sasuke'd refused to let Sakura talk him into doing anything else - no matter how guilty she made him feel.

Needless to say though, things had become much less interesting the day way into their sophomore year, when Naruto had finally given up the ghost on trying to 'beat' Sasuke. After he'd finally had his big epiphany about Sasuke's true nature(his shyness), the blonde boy had found it much more amusing to tease him - rather similarly to the way he still teased him.

And though Sasuke had valiantly survived the countless number of attempts Naruto had tried to catch him off guard, whenever the dobe began to act like that, there wasn't any way the raven could have avoid blushing and sometimes even stuttering. (Thank Kami-sama that he'd eventually grown out of the stuttering bit - for a while he'd been much like that Hinata girl, who'd secretly had that damn crush on Naruto forever).

Throughout the years, and somewhere along the line of Naruto's playful teasing, the two of them had eventually fallen into a strange level of comfort with one another. Things were no longer quite as tense whenever Naruto was in Sasuke's presence, and one day the Kyuubi boy even admitted aloud to Sasuke's face that he considered him as a friend. Maybe even a best friend.

Sasuke had been so... ridiculously happy at that. Without really thinking, his 'bad boy' act had slipped (not that it didn't do that enough around Naruto anyway) and he'd smiled. The first real genuine smile out of him that Naruto had claimed ever to see. And, unable to resist something pure like that, Naruto had smiled back. The memory of it still sent shivers up Sasuke's spine - the day he and Naruto had sealed their friendship with smiles like that. It was kind of embarrassing, but... sweet somehow, too. Whenever he was with Naruto, Sasuke could get a taste of happiness again - what it was like for things to be simple, and casual, and to be decidedly less angst-filled.

Probably things would have been much better for the both of them, if only Sasuke's feelings had stopped at friendship. But by that time, Sasuke had already known for so long how he really felt about the blonde boy, and there simply wasn't any denying it. Naruto was Sasuke's sun - his warmth, his happiness. Even when the dobe did stupid things, embarrassed him, made him mad or made him jealous, he was irresistible. Sasuke just couldn't get enough of him. It was infuriating, and... addicting, somehow.

And that was it. Falling in love with a dobe; it really wasn't all that difficult. It was dealing with that love that was the tricky part, and the whole confession thing that was even the trickier.

"Sakura..." Naruto growled, blue eyes burning with an intensity that Sasuke hadn't seen in them for a while. They were on the doorstep of Naruto's decidedly not-on-fire apartment, and the dobe was now clenching the post-it note that had been on the door tightly in his fist. It had read:

'Just kidding. Needed to get your attention. Meet me at the bridge.

-Sakura :)'

And while Naruto seethed with fury, Sasuke wondered what the hell Sakura thought that she was playing at. Obviously, it was nothing good, and unfortunately for the two boys involved, Sakura's plans were usually the ones that actually worked most of the time. Sasuke gulped, hard. Somehow, he just knew he was in for a ride.