Disclaimer: It's a good thing I don't own Naruto, because I like too many conflicting pairings.
A cookie to Weinerdog of Death and Doom for making a Naruto logo for getting to 25. It can be found here: http (:) (/) (/) pic2 (.) piczo (.) com (/) mythsoftime (/) ?g (equal) 1&cr (equal) 2
青空
There was a yawning silence, one of those uncomfortable ones in which you know that at the end there will be a question you'd rather not answer but there was no getting out of it.
There was a long-suffering sigh.
"You should have told him to stop when he cut you."
The black-haired boy half-shrugged, keeping still the shoulder that the older man was clutching. The man frowned—although you couldn't really tell—and pushed up his student's sleeve a bit more to get a better look at the wound.
"And you were planning on wrapping this... how...?" He inquired, a trace of exasperation in his voice.
And another shrug, mutely saying 'I'd have figured something out' that only earned a disapproving glance in return.
The silver-haired man turned back to the table where things had been neatly arranged, and picked up a swab of cotton to begin to clean at the long cut along the boy's shoulder.
"You shouldn't let your spars get so out of hand." He said matter-of-factly, in a way that one would say 'the sun is shining'.
"It's none of your business and it's a shallow cut anyway." The boy spoke at last, glowering at the attention, but doing nothing to stop it.
The teacher pointedly jabbed the long red mark, rewarded with a tiny grimace and scowl, before continuing. "It's my business when two of my students can't display proper teamwork—which it is!" He insisted when he saw the dark-haired boy begin to argue. "It's not teamwork when one of the teammates doesn't tell his sparring partner that he's hurt."
The boy made an annoyed sound and did not argue. It wasn't clear if he agreed and didn't want to admit it, or if he disagreed and simply did not want to fight. They were silent then, the boy letting the man clean and dress his wound with little more than a scowl in protest.
It was only when the last knot was tied in the white bandage and the sleeve was rolled back down over it that things seemed relatively normal. The boy shoved the man's hands away and sulked his way over to the engawa, ignoring the chuckle that followed him.
He stepped onto the slightly dirtied wood of the engawa, frowning when his foot scuffed along a plank that needed to be sanded, but ignored it and leaned against a pillar and idly looked up at the clear, cloudless sky.
It was early spring.
He heard someone shift behind him, and though he did not react outwardly, he felt uncomfortable at having been caught unawares. A hand clapped on his shoulder, and he glared up at his teacher by habit, and, likewise, his teacher was unaffected.
"We're all going to Ichiraku's tonight. You should come."
As predicted, the boy gave no indication that he would, but the man seemed to smile anyway. He leaned just a bit closer, as if to whisper a secret despite the fact they were alone.
"And Sasuke; next time Naruto hurts you accidentally, tell him. By punching him, if you feel so inclined." And with that the man disappeared, leaving the boy alone again.
He stared up at the deep blue sky.