Maybe Gaara wasn't exactly an expert when it came to romance (or anything related to social interaction really), but Naruto didn't have many people to turn to at the moment, and the ones he did were probably just as bad.
To his credit, Gaara did seem to be considering the situation with care and genuine interest.
"So…you think Sakura and Sasuke have been spending a lot of time together?"
"Yeah! Haven't you noticed it?"
Gaara shrugged. "I guess. I don't see why it's a problem though."
Naruto flushed. "Well, it's not a problem exactly, but I just think — "
And then, of course, the rest of his friends had to join in. Discussing these things in the middle of their Fantasy Roleplay Club meeting probably hadn't been the best idea, but Naruto hadn't been able to hold it in for much longer.
He felt like a jerk; Sakura was his friend, he shouldn't have been jealous of her. He should have been happy for her and the teme. Should being the key word because who was he kidding — there was no way he could just sit back and be happy for them. That would take time. And work.
Lots and lots of work.
"What's up?" Yugito asked, glancing at him and frowning slightly.
"Yeah, turn that frown upside down, yo!" Bee said, nudging Naruto lightly on the shoulder.
"He's upset because Sasuke has been spending too much time with Sakura," Gaara told them. Naruto's cheeks flushed and he shot his friend and incredulous stare.
"Ah, no, that's not it," He laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck.
Gaara blinked. "But you just said that."
'GAARA!' Naruto shrugged weakly. "Yeah, but…that's not what I meant." Sure, that was exactly what he meant, but he didn't want everyone knowing about it.
The rest of the group — all of whom were now staring in their direction — exchanged knowing glances. Naruto averted his gaze and sank back in his chair.
"It's not what you're thinking," he mumbled, feeling his cheeks growing warmer. "I'm just…pissed off because the teme skipped our ramen meet up at lunch today. That's all."
Yugito rolled her eyes. "Just tell him how you feel."
Naruto shook his head quickly. "I don't feel anything! And — besides, he's with Sakura."
Just saying that aloud hurt more than he wanted to admit.
Yugito snorted. "Pretty sure he's not. I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't think your friend is interested in the opposite sex."
"Huh?"
"He's gay."
"Sasuke?" Naruto shook his head. "No, he's not."
The group exchanged a series of incredulous stares, much to Naruto's irritation.
Fu leaned forward, her eyes wide. "You should just tell him Naruto! He's your best friend right? He'd understand."
"He's a bit of an asshole," Yugito shrugged. "But you obviously like him for a reason, so…"
"Yeah but Naruto likes everyone," Fu said, frowning thoughtfully. "Maybe he should go for someone else."
"But Naruto likes Sasuke," Gaara argued. His voice remained flat, and one would have thought he was entirely uninterested if he hadn't been actually contributing to the conversation.
"Hmm, Sasuke has a brother doesn't he?" Yugito mused. "Looks just like him, and he's way nicer."
"Nah, he's dating that weird blue haired friend of his."
"Oh my god, what?"
"Guys…" Naruto said weakly.
"Shouldn't we be roleplaying?" Gaara interrupted, and Naruto could have kissed him right then (if, you know, he hadn't caused this whole mess in the first place).
Fu grinned. "Oh yeah, I forgot we were huge nerds! Back to business guys."
Naruto slumped back in his chair, too exhausted to feel relieved. Well that definitely hadn't helped.
…
Sasuke was acting weird.
Lately he seemed to be going out of his way to avoid Naruto, which was pretty annoying. In Naruto's opinion, Sasuke was just living up to his nickname and being the teme they all knew him to be. And then he went and insulted Naruto's jumpsuit, and oh, that one really grated on his nerves.
And the whole time, he and Sakura seemed almost glued at the hip.
'Well of course they are, they're dating,' he thought glumly.
He tried to put it out of his mind. If Sasuke wanted to be a jerk and forget about Naruto just because he was dating someone, then that was his loss. Naruto wasn't going to lose any sleep over it (at least that's what he kept telling himself).
And then Kakashi approached him.
…
Naruto thought Kakashi was pretty damn cool. He was a close family friend, practically a big brother to Naruto, and he'd always idolised him a bit.
At this moment though all he wanted was for Kakashi to shut the hell up.
"So you've been pretty down lately," Kakashi said, eyeing Naruto in his usual lazy manner, "so I asked your friend Gaara what was wrong, since you seem to be hanging out with him a lot lately. And he told me that you were in love with Sasuke."
Naruto's eyes widened and he shook his head hurriedly. "No! That's not what I said! Gaara doesn't know what he's talking about!"
Kakashi ignored him and instead reached into his backpack, puling out a small book. He held it towards Naruto.
"You should read Icha Icha. It'll give you some pointers."
Naruto — who by now knew all about Kakashi's strange reading choices — yelped and took a step back.
"No! Don't read that! Kakashi, stop being a fucking pervert, Naruto, get away from that book now!"
Naruto looked up as two people hurried in their direction. He recognised Kakashi's best friend and Sasuke's cousin, Obito, immediately from the sound of his voice. As they arrived beside Kakashi, both of them panting, he realised that the other person was the last member of their trio, Rin.
Obito crossed his arms across his chest and scowled at Kakashi. "Stop corrupting the kid! No one wants to read your stupid book!"
"Naruto," Rin said, smiling sweetly, "I heard about what's happening and — maybe you could try chocolate?"
Obito nodded hurriedly. "Yeah! Chocolate! Chocolate is perfectly normal."
Kakashi snorted. "Stop acting like you know what you're talking about."
"Shut up, Bakashi!"
Naruto shook his head hurriedly and held up his hands, almost in a defensive gesture. "No, no, chocolates work fine!"
Kakashi sighed. "Fine, but if you need some help — "
"Ah, no, I'm fine."
Rin sighed, shooting Kakashi a look that was a mixture of amused and exasperated, while Obito eyed the book in Kakashi's hands through narrowed eyes.
…
He tried to put it out of his mind, but Kakashi's advice had made it very hard to ignore the Sasuke situation. There was no way he was reading Icha Icha, but maybe he could brainstorm some ideas. It couldn't hurt; Sasuke was barely around as it was these days, so if Naruto did permanently screw up their relationship then that meant it was really the teme's fault, right? Or…something like that.
It was worth a shot at any rate.
He tried to remind himself that he was Naruto Namikaze, and he never gave up. He repeated this mantra in his head as he tried to brainstorm ideas.
An hour later — and after a series of illegible scribbles and scrapped ideas — he mumbled a weak "I'm Naruto Namikaze and I…never give up," and buried his face in his pillow.
Why did this have to be so hard?
…
He was still not giving up. Sure, his plans were on hold for a bit until he happened to come up with a brilliant idea — and he would come up with something. There was inspiration all around him, and so what if everyday he didn't make a move, Sakura and Sasuke just got closer and closer, and probably fell more and more in love —
Oh god, oh god, oh god.
"Naruto?"
Naruto glanced up from where he'd been staring vacantly at the inside of his locker, his eyes wide and horrified, and he must have looked pretty bad judging from the way Itachi's expression creased in concern.
Itachi looked a lot like Sasuke. Obviously the universe was out to get him. Naruto really wanted to curl up in a corner and cry.
"Are you alright?" Itachi asked, frowning as he studied Naruto's face.
"Uh — yeah!" Naruto laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm just — uh — books! I'm getting my books. For maths. That's all."
Itachi still looked worried but nodded his head. Naruto inwardly sighed in relief. "Alright then. I wanted to talk to you, if that's alright?"
"Yeah sure thing." After all, just because Sasuke was being his usual jerky self didn't mean Naruto had to be rude to Itachi.
Itachi hesitated before continuing. "Look, Obito told me Kakashi was helping you win Sasuke over — " Naruto paled and shook his head, " — and he told me to tell you that, whatever you do, do not read Icha Icha."
"That's not what's happening!" Naruto said, still shaking his head. "I — Sasuke and I are friends!" Even if the teme was being a huge jerk and kept ignoring him for some reason. "And I would never read Kakashi's pervy books! No way!"
Itachi's shoulders slumped and he looked more than a little relieved. "That's good. I also wanted to —
"Oh there you are!"
Itachi stiffened and he let out a muffled curse.
There were a series of hurried footsteps and then a small group of older students were gathered around Itachi. Naruto recognised them as Itachi's friends — Sasuke was always complaining about them, but Naruto didn't think they were that bad. Really weird and a bit insane, sure, but some of the coolest people he knew were weird and insane.
"I told you to wait for us before you spoke to the kid!" Deidara complained, slinging an arm around Itachi's shoulders.
Itachi winced and shrugged him off. "Could you not — "
Deidara turned to Naruto — who was starting to think that maybe weird and insane wasn't such a good thing after all — and smirked. "If you really want to get Itachi's annoying little brother's attention, you need to do something big! I'm thinking explosions! It's artistic and — "
"Explosions?" Hidan cut in, rolling his eyes. "What the fuck Deidara, this isn't a Michael Bay movie." He turned to Naruto, who'd been scouring the area for a quick exit route (they were surrounding him). "I'm thinking a blood sacrifice."
Deidara snorted. "What sort of suggestion is that?"
"You could give him a gift," Sasori said. "I know a very nice puppet shop — "
"Puppets? What are we, in first grade?"
"Shut up Hidan, I happen to this Sasori made a very good suggestion." Deidara smiled at Sasori, who inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement.
Hidan's eyes widened. "Ooh, how about — "
"All of you, shut the fuck up." The blue haired one — Naruto couldn't remember his name, but Sasuke was always complaining about him hanging around his house too much — snapped, glaring at the rest of the group.
Itachi sighed in relief. "Thank you, Kisame." He gave Blue Hair — Kisame, apparently — a small smile, which he returned. For some weird reason, Deidara and Hidan made a series of gagging noises.
Naruto just wanted them all to leave. He wasn't sure when his relationship — lack of relationship, whatever — with Sasuke had suddenly become everyone else's business.
Itachi turned back to Naruto. "Okay, ignore all of those idiots — what I wanted to say was — "
Naruto perked up slightly. Sure, this was really embarrassing, but Itachi was super smart. Maybe he'd actually be able to give some good advice.
" — just be yourself."
His shoulders slumped. Yeah, like that was going to work.
…
Yeah being himself was definitely out of the question. He'd been himself since the first day they'd met and the stupid teme had never noticed him in that way. For someone so smart, Itachi could really be clueless when it came to things like this. Naruto guessed that was why he'd never dated anyone.
He ended up talking to Lee about it, after running into the older boy in the cafeteria lunch line. Lee was pretty cool, and he had complimented Naruto's new jumpsuit, so obviously he had very good taste.
Lee — after listening to Naruto's struggles with a strange look in his eyes that Naruto doesn't think to question; this was Lee after all, and he was kind of weird — told Naruto that maybe he should try flirting with Sasuke.
Naruto considered this and decided that it wasn't a horrible plan. He wouldn't normally try something like that, and the whole point of this was to be as out of character as possible, right? Then Sasuke would notice him.
His first attempt at flirting failed horribly. Sasuke stared at him for a moment and asked if he'd had too much sugar again.
"I've only had ramen today!" Naruto snapped.
Sasuke blinked and nodded. "Oh, that makes more sense."
…
Apparently trying to win Sasuke over was an impossible task because nothing he had tried was working. The bastard had even rejected chocolate. Chocolate. Who the hell could refuse chocolate? Obviously there was something very wrong with the teme.
He'd found a box of chocolates in his locker — chocolate hearts of all things, which were pretty cheesy, but girls liked receiving them, and Naruto had always thought the teme was kind of pretty in a stupid, smug, bastard-like way — and had assumed Kakashi, Obito and Rin had left them there for him to give to Sasuke. Obito had been pretty insistent on chocolates after all.
That sure had worked, since all Sasuke had done was look at the box of chocolates and say "Fuck you, dobe."
So yeah, apparently none of this was working, and Naruto, for one of the few times in his life, was actually considering giving up.
…
Sasuke blinked. "So you were trying to flirt?"
"Yes."
"Wow you are…really bad at that."
Naruto scowled.
Hiruzen groaned and rubbed his forehead, and Danzo let out a noise of anger. "Isn't anyone going to stop them?!"
"No," Anko said simply, her eyes still glued to the train wreck in front of her.
Hiruzen sighed and waved a hand dismissively. "Just let them finish." They'd gotten this far after all, and by this point he just wanted to be done with all of it.
The other teachers leaned forward, eager to hear what would happen next.
Naruto scowled and crossed his arms in front of him. "I don't know why you thought I liked Gaara."
"You're always around him!"
"Yeah, because he's my friend! We're in roleplay club together."
Sasuke swallowed and averted his gaze. "I, uh, didn't know that. I thought…" He flushed and shook his head. "And apparently you thought the same thing about me and Sakura!"
Naruto scowled. "Yeah, well, how was I supposed to know that you wanted to date me?! You suck at this!"
"So do you!"
Hiruzen coughed, interrupting their argument before it could go much further. "Boys, as interesting as this is, I really think we should talk about what happened at the assembly."
Danzo's expression darkened. "Yes — disrupting a school event, causing a scene — "
"It was a declaration of love!" Naruto protested. "…My mom suggested it."
Hiruzen sighed. "Of course Kushina did."
…
AN:
So I've FINALLY got this chapter out. Sorry for the long wait! Hopefully you guys enjoy this :)
Also, since there's only one chapter left in this, are there any other pairings or storylines you'd like to see in this collection? Because I'm definitely planning on expanding this modern!AU universe, and I want to focus on more characters and pairings than just Kisame/Itachi and Sasuke/Naruto.
