PART TWO

An Issue of Boyfriends and Girlfriends

Warnings: Triggers for brief mentions of teen suicide. This chapter also contains extremely foul language at some points.

"I'll be famous one day, but for now I'm stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons." Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid

"The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next." Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Girlfriends and General Pubescence

Farwell Middle School was tucked away from most meaningful places in Farwell Connecticut, not that there were any meaningful places anyway. This part of town was a land of infinite trees, seemingly infinite Dunkin Donuts drive thrus, narrow two-way roads congested by a population of poor parallel parkers, and houses in varying states of decay. There was one historical district near Broad Street whose tourists usually consisted of bored school children who didn't give a crap about abandoned textile mills and houses that once belonged to people only hardcore history buffs would care about. Most kids would have much preferred to visit their pick of decrepid old buildings just to see if those ghost hunters on television were actually on to something, or just freaking out for ratings. Because it was school, though, they were quite literally incapable of doing anything cool, and who could blame them? Cool was usually dangerous, and with danger came parents with their lawyer on speed dial, not to mention the press.

Even so, Farwell had a certain beauty to it. The soothing rustle of trees turning red and gold that hugged the perimeter of FMS appealed to Sakura. She was an outdoors girl, even if all she did outside these days was homework really, which was only about thirty percent homework, seventy percent boy watching. One boy in particular. She sat outside of the wide green with her back pressed against a large tree like she often did on nice days and plowed through the entirety of her geometry homework with practiced ease. Then she pulled out her copy of Pride and Prejudice, dog-eared, frayed, and worn with love, and glanced over it every so often. After all, her adolescent mind, though bright, entreated itself to a delightful, frivolous fantasy. Each "Darcy" to her now translated as "Sasuke." Sasuke, Sasuke, Mr. Sasuke.

He was currently engaged in tossing a football back and forth with a guy she didn't know, and she could watch for hours. He was tough, yet graceful. She likened the way he moved to dancing, and then she wondered if he danced. In her mind's eye he did.

He was a whole head taller than she was now, which wasn't uncommon. Sakura felt small among giants, particularly among girls whose breasts had finally developed. She knew she was lacking in that department, for now, as Ino would often remind her. The two of them had started fighting because both of them liked Sasuke. It was silly really. Ino thought Sasuke was into athletic girls, so she'd taken to running and cheer leading as her hobbies, probably in hopes that Sasuke would pay attention, which wasn't possible. Sure, Sasuke himself was athletic. Sakura had come to his basketball games during the winter, and one soccer game during the spring, but what Ino didn't get was that he wasn't just some jock just because he played sports.

Sakura had been paying closer attention, and knew for a fact that what Sasuke really needed was a girl who was smart just like he was, and of course moderately good-looking. Sakura took to crash dieting to maintain her slim figure and was growing out her hair, even if it was tough to keep up. She held it back in a ponytail a lot.

She wasn't interested in exercises outside of hiking and swimming, and the changing weather didn't really lend itself well to either of those activities, so sitting and reading was the next best thing. Well, when she wasn't distracted, anyway.

She couldn't help but be. Sasuke was just so handsome. He was always good-looking, and unlike most boys puberty did him nothing but favors. His shoulders were wider, his cheeks were slimmer, his calves were like rocks covered in fine black hair. If he had even one pimple he hid it well. If he shaved then he did so diligently and carefully, because she saw neither a five o'clock shadow, nor any razor bumps. He had the most perfect full, pink lips, slim nose, dark and mysterious eyes with pretty eyelashes. Sometimes she thought he looked rather sad, though, like maybe someone in his family had passed away. If he were the sensitive type, and she liked to imagine that he was, she hoped that maybe someday she could embrace and kiss all the sadness away. If he were somehow wounded she wanted to heal him, then protect him from anymore hurt, because that was what love was all about.

And make no mistake, she was in love, and that damn Ino would never come between them.

Dear Sasuke,

I'll just be blunt. I like you, and I think that we should go out. Could you please meet me by the stop sign after school? Alone? "You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." I'll be waiting.

Your Secret Admirer

There was nothing secret about this admirer, Sasuke surmised. There was only one girl that he knew who could quote Jane Austen, let alone knew what a Jane Austen was. There was also only one girl who sent him the occasional love letter that wasn't littered with grammatical atrocities, impressively poor spelling, and netspeak. Unfortunately, this was one of two girls that couldn't, for the life of her, take a goddamn hint. This had been going on since they began attending FMS last year, and it was annoying. It wasn't often that she wrote him love letters, but when she did it made his skin prickle. He wasn't even remotely interested.

Sasuke shredded the paper into confetti and threw it in the trash. Fuckin' Sakura. Granted, if it were a choice between her and Ino he supposed Sakura was the less annoying of the two. After all, she didn't yell at him for ignoring her advances the way Ino did, and... that was it, really.

He'd come into school tomorrow, and maybe she'd look like a kicked puppy if he happened to pass her in the halls, but that was her problem. He supposed he could tell her outright that he wasn't interested, but he didn't feel like he owed her an explanation, and that his not showing up ought to say it all. She wasn't completely stupid. She should take the hint.

Except this had been going on for over a fucking year now. Oh well. Al Gore and his Inconvenient Truth be damned. If she killed trees for pointless love letters then it wasn't Sasuke's problem. If the world burnt to a crisp, flooded, or froze over it'd totally be Sakura's fault.

The sad thing was that this wasn't even close to being the suckiest part of his day. Classes were the same shit, of course. He got an A on his two page essay of... whatever. He didn't even care. The so called "highest math class" was just accelerated arithmetic with fractions and decimals, and some geometry, which apparently was a big fucking deal in seventh grade. Oh brother. That was also the class Sakura made eyes at him the most, so that made him pretty grumpy. Then he got 110 on his Spanish test. According to the teacher he was one of only three people who ever remembered, or bothered to put the tildes over the "en-yays." Apparently remembering that meant extra credit, which was stupid considering that most of the class disregarded an important part of the Spanish alphabet altogether. Though Sasuke did have the advantage of having a Californian for a mother who spoke some Spanish, so that helped, not that he really used that to his advantage much. Most of her help was self-imposed, and he accepted it just to shut her up.

Was it weird for a smart kid's favorite class to be gym? Sasuke didn't give a shit. It was floor hockey day in gym, and he was on the offense. At the end of it the goalie was nearly in tears. That was the best part of his day.

Then came lunch, which was normally mediocre, but today it was arguably the worst.

Naruto plopped his tray down right in front of Sasuke, and fell into his seat with the most smitten look on his face, which could only mean trouble. And by trouble, he meant girls, Naruto's favorite topic these days.

"Guess what?" said Naruto, tapping a plastic fork upon a sloppy slab of pre-made Salisbury steak. If there was one thing Sasuke was beyond grateful for, it was that his mom always packed him a lunch. Usually turkey and tomato on rye, his favorite, with whatever fruit was handy, and celery sticks. He didn't particularly like celery, but he ate them because he hated to waste food. Speaking of which, he didn't feel like talking, so he grunted at Naruto while he got started on his sandwich. He was only half listening. Girls might be Naruto's favorite topic, but it wasn't a mutual interest.

"I have a girlfriend."

Sasuke couldn't ignore the way that made his insides squeeze. He even stopped chewing for a second and looked up at Naruto. Once his nerves eased a bit he found that he could swallow, averted his gaze, and concentrated on his food. The significance of this didn't hit him full force quite yet, though he knew immediately that this meant trouble. He hadn't considered for a moment that Naruto's girl-crazed ways would ever amount to anything, let alone a legit girlfriend. It had to be legit. He wouldn't be this happy if it weren't.

Naruto sure showed him.

"OK." That was all Sasuke had to say about that. Congratulations were probably what Naruto was expecting. That, or jealousy. After all, though he had plenty of chances, Sasuke himself never had a girlfriend. He turned them all down. It wasn't even a matter of waiting for The One like Naruto once suggested in babbling. It was just... you know.

When Naruto realized that this was all he was going to get out of Sasuke, his sunny disposition drew down to a look of confusion. Or maybe it was frustration. Or both. Sasuke didn't care. He was too busy trying to suck the bread out of his teeth.

"Come on, man. Could you at least pretend that you care about the greatest thing that's ever happened to me?"

Ouch.

"Woo." Sasuke took a big bite out of his apple and looked upon Naruto with what seemed like more jarring indifference, though beneath it he could feel a pin prick in his chest. So girls trumped best friends all of a sudden? Yeah. Good to know.

"Oh, fuck you, too.

"Anyway, apparently Hinata's had a thing for me for a while, and I never knew until I got the nerve to ask her out. You know Hinata, right? That really cute, shy girl? Yeah, you know, she's so pretty. Hot, actually. She's sweet, too, and I love short hair on a girl. It brings more attention to their face, you know? Man, I'm so lucky. My first girlfriend is perfect."

"If she's so perfect then where is she? Why are you sitting here? Shouldn't you be sitting with her?" said Sasuke, and maybe that came out a little more bitter than he had intended, but the topic of girls was not only boring, annoying, and even a bit disturbing, but it was a sore spot for Sasuke to boot.

"What the fuck's your problem today? I thought you'd be happy for me."

"Oh, ecstatic. Now I get to listen to you rave and obsess over just one girl rather than half the student body. Gonna tell me what her bra size is next? Is Twilight gonna be the first book you bother to read just because every girl and their grandma's obsessed with it right now?"

"Dear god, no. I'll have you know that my Hinata prefers The Notebook over Twatlight, actually. And I read sometimes, you dick. How could I possibly be bros with Douchebert Einstein and his older brother this long and not?"

"Tweets don't count."

"Watchmen and Harry Potter, OK?

"You know what? Fuck you. If you're just gonna be a jerk then I'll go sit with Shikamaru and them instead."

And so he did just that, and it was at least a week before the two of them would speak again, mostly Sasuke's choice. The worst things about middle school by far were the girls, the girlfriends, and the pressure to be interested and involved in all that. He didn't want one, point-blank. He sort of knew why, thanks to one act of dumbfuckery by Naruto, but that was something he buried far back into his brain, because he didn't want to think about it. It was a problem he could deal with later, perhaps even never, unless he could deal with it in secret, but that was tricky, and Sasuke didn't feel like putting effort into an endeavor that was nowhere near the top of his priorities list anyway.

At least until Naruto befriended some eighth grader named Gaara Sabaku. That's where all of his own trouble would truly begin.

Naruto had to shit something wicked right in the middle of science class. The teacher wouldn't let him go at first, but she cringed when he hugged his aching stomach and then urged him to get out regardless of whether he was faking it or not. Sometimes he was. Today wasn't one of those days, and he had barely made it.

One liter of mountain dew (mom was gonna freakin' kill him, but it was worth it), cold Salisbury steak, freezer burnt tater tots, and his colossal frustration with Sasuke really did a number on him. Since he'd be sitting there awhile, he pulled out his prepaid phone just to see if he got any text messages. There were two. He got a less than three heart from Hinata which made him all fluttery, and a "congrads dood" from Kiba, but that was it. No "I'm sorry" from Sasuke, that fucking bastard. He didn't have to be such a dick, though it only reinforced a theory Naruto had about him.

He wasn't entirely sure, mind you, but he had a pretty serious inkling that his best friend was gay. He'd suspected as much ever since the summer, and was itching to find out.

So it was Sasuke's birthday, right? Naruto thought he had the ultimate surprise for him. He had spent the night as he often did, and the two of them stayed up pretty late playing Mario Kart Wii. Yeah, his parents lightened up with their anti-TV, anti-video games ways when they realized Sasuke's nose was gonna be buried in a book more than anything regardless, and even so they only allowed Nintendo systems, because those had more of the family oriented and physical games. No matter. Wii games were pretty cool sometimes.

Now, they played Wii up until about one in the morning. That was when Naruto couldn't stand it anymore. He had to show Sasuke his surprise, the coolest fucking thing he had ever gotten his hands on, and Uncle Jiraiya had so many of them that it wouldn't even be missed.

With one wicked grin he pulled a dirty magazine out of his pillow case. Good thing Sasuke's house had central air, because his cheeks were already hot from excitement. It was weird to him that Sasuke never talked about girls, but he figured the guy would have to have something to say about gorgeous bare tits and full frontal nudity. Naruto himself observed each glossy page like it was the gospel on his own. He fucking loved women. They were the greatest thing in the world at the time, and he thought about them constantly. He just wanted to know once and for all how much Sasuke shared in his enthusiasm.

"Dude, check this out."

Unbeknownst to Naruto, a dismayed Sasuke zoned out in class, recalling the same events. Sasuke did check out that magazine. At least, he got to a whopping one page of it. Naruto was leaning over his shoulder, laughing to himself like it was the greatest day of his life. Or maybe he was embarrassed. Who knows?

Anyway, the woman on this particular page looked like an empty shell to Sasuke. Her eyes were devoid of discernible emotion, her lips were too fat, her skin was probably air brushed. She was disturbingly skinny. It was just so fake. The tits were probably fake, too, or breast cancer waiting to happen. They were enormous, two erect nipples staring back at him. OK, whatever. That part did nothing for him. What got him was her using her right hand to separate the lips of her hairless genitalia, revealing what he only thought of as her piss hole.

To be honest, the whole image made him pretty queasy. First of all, he straight up did not find this woman attractive. She was society's definition of beauty, no doubt about it, but was she actually beautiful? He didn't know. He didn't even care. He didn't know why Naruto thought he wanted to look at this, other than the obvious. It was cool. It was naughty. It was taboo, only kind of not, because it was also expected of boys their age.

Sasuke was male. He had just turned thirteen. He was six inches taller than he was six months ago, and he had hair on more than just his head now. He was sporty, and somehow attracted more female attention than ever, though when he looked in the mirror the image that stared back was often depressing. He supposed he was relatively good-looking, depending on who was judging. What he didn't get was why that mattered. Why people couldn't just leave him the fuck alone, particularly of the female variety, regardless of how he looked. If there was one thing he had in common with this naked lady, it was that they were both objectified and conscious of it. The only difference was that this woman got paid. He should start charging every asshole that sent him a love letter.

This was the first time Sasuke consciously acknowledged with utmost certainty that he did not want female attention, nor did he want to give females attention. Not in that way, anyway. And he was OK with that. He closed the magazine and handed it back to Naruto.

"Make sure you get this crap out of here without my parents finding it."

"Really?" said Naruto. "Come on, did you seriously just turn down porn? I mean, I know it's all over the Internet, too, but still, this is vintage."

Then he asked offhandedly, "You gay or something?"

"Who cares?" said Sasuke, a knee jerk reaction. You could practically see the steam coming out of his ears. This wasn't the first time he'd gotten that. In fact, it probably wasn't even the hundredth. He'd been accused of checking guys out in the locker room on multiple occasions, which wasn't even true. He didn't look at anyone. Rather, he made a point not to look at anyone, which probably got him into even more trouble. There was also his unique hairdo and the nice clothes that he always wore outside of sports. He wore polo shirts and jeans that fit and matching shoes because that's what his mom bought. Period. When Itachi was his age he had to wear a lot of the same crap, and as far as Sasuke knew people never called Itachi a queer, a fag, or a homo. Oh, but Sasuke got it all. He was also a fairy, a queen, a dyke (that particular dipstick obviously didn't know that was a term for lesbians, and Sasuke wasn't sure where he had learned that himself, but whatever), a queef (again, WHY?), a cum guzzling ho bag, a manwhore, and his all time favorite: Sasgay.

He was actually quite desensitized to it, for the most part. Most of the guys he played sports with didn't lay into him all that badly, because "for a queer" Sasuke was pretty good at everything that he did. And, to his credit, Sasuke never hit on guys. Ever. Most of them knew that, and most of them laid off. It was just the vocal minority being stupid bullies because they hated themselves.

But then there was Naruto, who was supposed to be his best friend. He really had to go and ask "You gay, or something?" like it was no big deal. Like it was some kind of joke. To his credit, it was the first time anyone actually bothered to ask, rather than deigning to assign Sasuke his sexual orientation to him, but it still pissed him off.

"I care," said Naruto in a small voice. Sasuke didn't really know what to make of it. Was Naruto worried that he'd wasted five years of close friendship with someone the whole school (minus some raving girls) seemed to perceive as gay? Somehow that didn't quite fit. Naruto was pretty cool about accepting people for who and what they were, but was there a limit? Did it matter? Actually, whether Sasuke liked it or not, it mattered a lot. He didn't admit it often, not even to himself, but Naruto meant the world to him. Not to imply anything. Just, Sasuke was stand-offish and had a hard time making really good friends. Naruto was the only close friend he managed to make, to be honest.

"Well, don't. I don't want to talk about it." Sasuke shut off the light and rolled over far to his side of the bed. "I'm going to sleep now."

Naruto wanted to talk about it. After all, he knew Sasuke well enough to know that he was prone to depression. Even Itachi agreed. Also, they had attended an assembly about a month ago that was probably long forgotten by everyone but Naruto. It dealt with the issue of bullying like they often did, but it also dealt with the issue of suicide, including the suicide of gay teenagers. Now, Naruto already had that faint inkling that Sasuke might be gay at the time, so that whole issue of gay suicide made his heart jump into his throat. Sasuke wouldn't commit suicide, would he? Though Naruto sincerely doubted it, he also didn't feel like taking his chances.

He had to know for sure, no matter what. All he knew was that Sasuke wasn't interested in girls. Well, that's all the evidence Naruto had really. That, and the fact that Sasuke didn't deny it. He just never talked about it, which was a shame because Naruto wanted to tell him that it was OK, you know? It was a hell of a lot better to be gay than... yeah. Well, actually, that didn't sound right.

More like, it was just OK to be gay. Period. A lot of people thought so, what with gay marriage being legalized in more and more states. LGBT support was a common thing on bumper stickers, too, and a lot of TV shows had gay characters now. Not to mention the hand the Internet had raising awareness. Naruto didn't have to think about it too much to realize that he had no problem with it. He must have slept in a bed with Sasuke a hundred times, and it's not like Sasuke tried to jump his balls or anything. Gay people being perverts that can't control themselves was just a stupid myth that Naruto could vouch for, granted he was correct about Sasuke, and he was pretty sure that he was.

So pushing girls on Sasuke was probably rude, then. But then what was he supposed to do, push guys on him? Was that rude, too? Did Naruto even know anyone who was openly gay? He looked up. The graffiti of bathroom stall doors were sometimes helpful in that regard. He bothered to make an effort to decipher the faded Sharpie scrawl on the door and walls that surrounded him. Most of it was generic fuckery about carpet munching, this dude's a giant cock, this girl's an ugly cunt, I fucked this teacher last night, blazin' 420 all day long, little drawings of dicks, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, and stupid shit like that. Obviously the janitor couldn't be bothered to wash these doors ever, or perhaps just gave up. He eventually stumbled upon something of use, though. He really was one lucky bastard sometimes.

"Ga... Gaara sux big daddy cock... 4 slammin' head call Gaara at-how the fuck am I supposed to read that number?... Gayra cocksucker..."

Gaara? Who the hell is that?

Well, Naruto wasn't going to find out if he spent his entire day on the toilet. He wasn't even sure if this "Gaara" was actually gay or not, or even how to find him. After all, Sasuke's name popped up once or twice, too, and Naruto thought about taking his own permanent marker and blacking it out, but then thought against it. After all, he had the mind of a delinquent. He knew that if he blacked out their precious bathroom slander that they'd just replace each one with twenty more, and Sasuke was already pissy enough at the moment. The whole point was to make Sasuke feel better, not worse.

So Naruto flushed, washed his hands, then set out on a quest to find this Gaara person, hoping like hell that he was actually gay, or at least knew someone who was.

Sasuke decided to meet Sakura at the stop sign after all, and she looked positively stunned. He almost thought she was going to turn tail and run. After all, he was in a terrible mood, and was sure that it showed. The mayo from his sandwich was giving him acid reflux, and he was working on a pretty disgusting headache as well. He'd never been so pissed off at Naruto in his life. It wasn't so much the girlfriend that bothered him, but it almost felt like he was being replaced. He felt like that for awhile actually, when Naruto started noticing every female ever, but this was just the final nail in the coffin. So Hinata was "the greatest thing that ever happened" to him, was she? Well... fine.

Fine. So be it. Whatever. He could take control of at least one problem in his life.

"H-hi Sasuke," said Sakura, blushing like crazy. Her arms were folded behind her, and her head was bowed. It actually reminded him of Hinata quite a bit, which only put him in a worse mood. Why was he here again? He worked it out in his mind an hour ago. Look, Sakura. You're not terrible, for a girl anyway. That doesn't mean I want to be your boyfriend, though, so you should quit wasting your time, OK? I'm not interested. For what it's worth, it's not just you. I'm not interested in any girls. I'm kind of... you know.

His thoughts were cut off when she threw herself into him, pressing her lips against his so suddenly. They were sticky with some watermelon lip gloss crap, and her hands were cold! He was so startled by this that he reacted before he could even think.

He grabbed her and shoved her so hard that she yelped and fell into the pavement sideways. He could hear her clothes scrape against the sidewalk. It was a mistake to push so hard, an accident, and he felt bad the moment he did it. At least nobody was around to see it. The cops could go after him for this. She probably would have been bleeding if she weren't dressed in pants and a hoodie, and it took her a minute to gather herself into a sitting position. All he could do for the longest time was watch, like he wasn't even involved.

The worst part of it all was that he'd made her cry. He didn't know what to do for her short of giving her false hope, or the wrong impression. What could he even do? He couldn't take it back, could he?

He just didn't understand girls. He didn't put in the effort to. He just didn't want to. Now he'd made one cry, and it actually hurt him. He didn't need to take his bad day out on her. That's not how it was supposed to be. She didn't deserve that.

"Here," said Sasuke, extending his hand to her. She glanced at it apprehensively through her tears, then looked up at him as though to discern whether his intentions were good or not. "Come on, please get up."

"Why?" she croaked. Why? Why what? Why get up? Why did he push her? Why wasn't he interested in her? Perhaps it was all three, and he saw a change in her eyes that didn't sit right with him. It was a look that made him think he should have stuck with his original plan, which was ignoring her. He wasn't exactly stellar at conveying things that were actually on his mind.

"I didn't come out here to hurt you. I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it.

She slapped his hand away and let herself up at that.

"If you weren't interested you could have just said so!" she belted at the top of her lungs. Then she launched her fist into his face like a missile, and he saw stars. He almost fell. Goddamnshitfuck, he didn't know girls could hit that hard, especially one like Sakura, but he deserved that. He absolutely did. And while he rubbed his sore cheek he watched her retreat into the neighborhood, still crying, hugging herself. Well... fuck. Just, fuck. Nice going.

He could taste blood tinted with watermelon. It was pretty nasty.

I'm not interested in any girls. I'm kind of... you know.

He knew, but the words for it wouldn't come quite yet.

TBC

A/N: OK, credits: Watchmen is a graphic novel by Alan Moore. Twilight is by Stephenie Meyer. The Notebook is by Nicholas Sparks. I've already credited the others.