Disclaimer: The characters of Naruto and settings are all owned by Masashi Kishimoto not me.

Chapter 4: Don't hide shame or courage

The next day, they both attended school, and their eyes flickered over each other countless times, yet both, too afraid and too ashamed to speak to each other.
Iruka sensei seemed more or less glad that Naruto wasn't swearing anymore after yesterday's incident, although he noticed Naruto and Sasuke were both edgy with each other's existence.

Naruto was meant to say 'thanks'.
Sasuke was meant to say 'sorry'.

But they both didn't have the courage to.

Sasuke left early that day, after school, which left Naruto walking all alone, like usual. The same eyes were felt upon him again. But somehow, that day was somewhat different to others and Naruto sensed the air of difference just by walking through his every day route to his way home.

At the end of the road, where the drunkards normally were, they didn't throw anything at Naruto, but instead hid behind doors of the bars and just glared.

For the first time of his life, he reached his house without getting a single scratch.
And another unusual thing that day was that Sasuke was at Naruto's doorstep, standing with his hands in his pockets and waiting for Naruto.

"Uh...that's my house..." Naruto said awkwardly.

"I know," Sasuke replied coolly, looking side ways at Naruto.

An awkward silence fell upon the two.

Naruto broke it by stepping forwards and around Sasuke to go inside his own house, ignoring Sasuke and putting a hand to his door handle. But Naruto couldn't seem to open it.
He felt uneasy as he felt Sasuke really close on his left side.

"Why did you come here?" Naruto asked without looking at Sasuke.

"..."
Sasuke's eyes squinted a little, wanting to say something but couldn't.
Not getting and answer, Naruto looks up with a questioned look at Sasuke, and then realizes that his left cheek has a deep gash, and was bleeding.

"Hey! You're hurt!" Naruto exclaimed, grabbed Sasuke's wrist and pulled him inside.

"Wha-!" Sasuke was taken by surprise and nearly tripped himself.
Why Naruto hadn't seen it at first sight was because Sasuke was looking at Naruto sideways, only showing his right side of his face, since Sasuke had tried to hide it.

In the middle of the living room, Sasuke pulled his arm back quickly and broke away from Naruto's grip.

"It's fine! It's only a scratch," Sasuke said in a rush as he roughly rubbed the blood off his cheek with the back of his hand.
He felt his face grow warm as he blushed from embarrassment to be worried over by Naruto who, till a second ago, had not the care in the world of who got injured where.
Naruto growled, pulled Sasuke again and made him sit on his bed.
Naruto went to get a bandage and a wet hand towel, leaving a slightly shocked Sasuke sitting on Naruto's bed which was stained in blood from yesterday.

When Naruto came back, he rubbed his wet towel against Sasuke's cheek softly, wiping the blood off with extreme care.
Sasuke winced a little, but stared at Naruto who didn't realize he was being stared it from such concentration upon Sasuke's wound.
This was the first time Sasuke felt Naruto's gentle fingers upon his cheeks which held it in place, and the gentle processing of tending Sasuke made him realize that Naruto isn't a rough, mad-mouthed, bad guy at all, but quiet the opposite: kind, gentle, caring... and lonely.
Naruto's defence was to act up strongly and hide away his fragile self... because that's how he was forced to be.
The villagers made him mask his true self...
Why can't nobody see through, past his mask?
Once Naruto was done with wiping all the blood off, he put a large bandage and taped it on Sasuke, which then brought Sasuke back to Earth, away from his train of thoughts.

So he has bandages... I wonder where it was. I couldn't find them anywhere... Sasuke thought.

Before Sasuke got to mumble a 'thanks', he was questioned.

"What made the oh-so-great Uchiha foolishly get a wound so deep?" Naruto asked, with his usual tone again with such sarcasm, yet to Sasuke it seemed the words had their venom taken out of it.

"I...uh..."

How was he supposed to explain?
He couldn't tell Naruto that he got hurt for Naruto.

-Flashback-

Sasuke quickly left school before any girls were able to follow him to annoy him right back to his house, and he went straight to the bathroom.

There he did the 'Henge no Jutsu' hand structures and transformed into Naruto's figure and walked out of the door casually. Too casual that Sasuke at first, didn't realize.
Sasuke knew Naruto stays at school for awhile every day after school so he walked the paths where Naruto would normally go without being so cautious about getting caught.

He walked out of the school and saw his reflection on the school windows to check out his transformation which was perfect, yet found somehow he found it different to the usual Naruto, but not figuring out what he was missing.
A rock was thrown at him that brought him back out from his thoughts and he dodged it before the rock had reached him. He turned to the 3 guys his age, who were looking angry and frustrated that the rock that they had thrown got dodged.

"Don't dodge it you monster! We have the right to punish you for being in our school! And you have to accept and receive those punishment like you're supposed to!" and with that, another rock was flung at him, missing him from the boy's inaccurate throwing.

"Dodge it again and you'll have my father teach you a lesson again!" another said, before throwing a rock and which had it heading straight at Sasuke who only had a split second to stop himself from dodging the rock.
It hit him on the arm, not strong enough to feel the pain, yet he realized that if he were to go against them, it wasn't just the kids whohe'dhave to face with.
He slowly backed away and walked towards Naruto's house while the kids were yelling at him.

"That's right, go back home, monster!"
"Don't come back!"
"Go die, monster!"

Sasuke held in all the anger building up inside him and he forced himself not to flail out at them while he tried to block out their voices. In the village, Sasuke felt all the cold, cruel eyes upon him that weren't seeing him as a human, and harsh words were thrown at him from random people every now and then.
He suddenly felt a surge of pain in his heart.
Not from the harsh people but to know how Naruto felt all the time.

Of course these people didn't wound Sasuke's heart as much as it did Naruto since Sasuke didn't know how it feels to be treated this way ever since he can remember and have no one to support him, nor have parents.
He belonged nowhere...

He looked at one of the windows of a shop where he once again saw his reflection of Naruto's form, and he found that now it looked a lot more like the Naruto he knew. What was missing from before was the slumping shoulders and the sullen eyes, the happiness drained from his face, ruining his glint of blue eyes that were supposed to be much more radiant and beautiful than people every knew since they were the ones who kept tainting it.

At the end of the alley, where the drunkards were, Sasuke walked downcast, his heart heavy, filled with sadness for Naruto. A drunk man threw a broken beer bottle at Sasuke who sensed it and dodged by moving aside but didn't have his reflex quick enough from the distraction of his minds and emotion.
He received a deep gash on his left cheek.

Sasuke death-glared at the man who threw it, as his jutsu became undone and returned to his normal figure with a poof.
The drunken man looked shocked to see that it wasn't Naruto and that Sasuke jumped up in front of the man, raising his leg to kick under the man's chin, strong.

The man flipped, rolled over and crashed into a bar, bleeding from the head.
Sasuke walked up to him, giving him the best, darkest death glare he ever made, his eyes slightly glowing red.

"So you're the one who's hurting Naruto," Sasuke said, piercing the man with his glare with such force that the man couldn't move or talk from fear though the people in the bar charged at Sasuke, as if Sasuke's words were a signal for attack.

"...you guys too?" Sasuke asked quietly before moving into action.
He bet up all the people in the bar one by one, giving each a clear hit so they won't be able to stand up again for awhile.

"If you hurt Naruto ever again, I'll kill you all," Sasuke warned, and then left the bar quietly with his hands in his pockets.

-Flashback ends-

There's no way I can tell him what I've doneSasuke thought.

"I ...was practicing my shuriken and one flung back at me accidentally," Sasuke lied, but Naruto bought it as quickly as an innocent and gullible person can ever be.

"Look who's calling me the dobe," Naruto smirked.
Sasuke smiled, in relief that Naruto didn't find Sasuke lying.
His smile was a genuine one, so soft that made Naruto blush a little.

"Thanks," Sasuke said, as he got of the bed and started to leave.

"Wait!" Naruto suddenly cried.
Sasuke looked back, surprised.

"I...I should... be the one," Naruto stammered.

"Should be the one what?" Sasuke asked.

"...to ...to say ...uh...thanks," Naruto mumbled, looking away from Sasuke, which makes Sasuke form a small smile.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Sasuke said.

"But tomorrow's Saturday, idiot!" Naruto pointed out.

Sasuke looked back at Naruto and repeated his words.

"I'll see you tomorrow"

-