Uchiha Sasuke did not like going outside.

Nature was unnatural. It was irregular, and made no sense. He tolerated it for the sake of missions and training, but otherwise, 'outside' was a dirty, dusty, unrefined germ paradise.

It was no surprise that Naruto loved it, because Naruto himself was irregular and made no sense.

"I have work to do. I will not waste my time on one of your pointless whims."

"Sasuke." The tree-hugging fox boy whined. "Come on. You can't lock yourself in your library forever."

"I beg to differ."

Naruto scowled at the unresponsive oak that, despite all his piteous whingeing, remained obstinately shut. His hand had already curled into a fist, itching to pound the too-pale skin of his very best (but most annoying) friend. "I know you haven't eaten yet." He continued as nicely as he could, for once not wanting to get into a fight. Not after spending two freaking hours making fiddly damn onigiri and sandwiches for this freaking ungrateful bas- "Iruka-sensei says getting some sun is good for you. Gives you...um, vitamin...S, I think."

"Vitamin D, which means for dodo-brains like you, dobe."

"I'm not a dodo-brain! And don't call me a dobe!"

"Che."

The blond stomped childishly and started to bang on the door. "Come out!"

"No."

I sure as hell didn't waste two hours for nothing. "Sasuke, you come out or I'll haul you out, no matter what it takes!"

"You and what army, dobe?"

Fifteen minutes found Sasuke sitting on the grass outside his house, not-quite-pouting around a mouthful of egg and watercress. Behind him, chattering blond clones were bustling around his house. Half were sweeping out a smouldering pile of leaves and newspapers and the other half were opening windows to let the smoke out.

"I can't believe you smoked me out of my own house. You know I'll kill you for that later."

The real Naruto, sprawled bonelessly next to him, cracked open a sky-blue eye and gave him an eerily familiar smirk. "Sure you will."

Sasuke's pride prevented him from exacting his revenge right then, because showing any sign of angerfrustrationresentment would also be a sign of weakness, because then Naruto would know that he was able to bring out the angerfrustrationresentment, and that was a bad thing.

Because.

"Frowning at my onigiri won't make it taste any better." His best friend piped up, noticing that his hooded eyes were burning a hole right through the center of the rice ball.

Sasuke sniffed disparagingly and bit off a corner. He could almost see Naruto's ears twitch, anticipating his reaction. Ah. The silly blond must have worked hard on this 'picnic' to be so concerned over what he thought. He had even made onigiri, which Sasuke knew he hated.

Even though he was an impudent, loudmouthed, no-respect-at-all-for-other-people's-privacy dodo brain who had just tried to suffocate him in his own library, Naruto truly cared about other people, and it warmed a little part of him that had no business being warm. Sasuke swallowed his mouthful and took another bite, chewing slowly this time. He could see the expectation on the tan whiskered face turning into a look of irritation as he drew out the moment.

Naruto snapped first, as expected.

"Shit in a tin, would you just swallow? I didn't poison it, ya know."

The brunette allowed himself to smirk at this minor victory and downed the thoroughly masticated mouthful.

Naruto went from mad to glad in half a second. "Well? Didja like it?"

"It's lumpy and uneven in shape, the rice is too wet and there's too much filling." He said. "But it's good enough."

Naruto looked cute when he was sad. Sasuke secretly liked making him sad and he pounced on every opportunity, just so he could see that face. But today the breeze was fresh and the clones were relatively quiet, and it wasn't a time for sadness of any kind, no matter how cute it was. He reached over to smooth a few strands of wayward hair behind the blond's ear.

"You're noisy and you wear orange and are absolutely vulgar. But you're good enough."

And as he drew his hand back, his fingers brushed ever so gently against the soft whiskered cheek in a tender caress.

Uchiha Sasuke did not like going outside.

But maybe sometimes, when the sun was shining and he had gold on his lap, it was good enough.