Disclaimer: Naruto, his friends and the world he lives in don't belong to me but to Masashi Kishimoto. I write this story only for my pleasure and I don't make any money with it.
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Rich Jerks from Center Uptown
Objectively, Naruto's place was still crowded, even though Juugo had gone to bed before Sasuke and Naruto had returned from work, and got up and left before they had woken up. Objectively, Naruto's place was crowded even if it was inhabited by only two people, and yet, compared to last week when Sasuke's whole team had been sleeping on the floor it was empty. Naruto felt it when he looked around: Suigetsu's sleeping-bag was no longer lying on the floor (he had always failed to store it away), Karin's various creams were no longer overpopulating the board above the sink, only Juugo's blankets lay neatly folded in a corner.
Sasuke was still asleep, curled up on his bed. Naruto had learnt to keep his arms close to his body, now that Sasuke slept next to him, but Sasuke did not seem to have realized that curled up he took up more than half of the available space. Holding fast to his blanket he looked like a small child in his sleep. The vulnerable, horrified child who had just witnessed the murder of his entire family, Naruto thought: When Sasuke slept, he turned back into him. Naruto felt the desire to protect him – why had he allowed his jealousy to blind him and prevent him from seeing Sasuke's vulnerability?
Sasuke woke up when the sunlight touched his face.
"You are awake?" he wondered, as on most days he had been the first to wake up.
"I had to, or I would have fallen out of the bed", Naruto answered good-humouredly.
Sasuke saw now too that he had lain right in the middle of the bed, and that Naruto had had to find some free space around him. He blushed and withdrew to his half.
"I'm sorry – I don't want to take up your space. I can find a place for Juugo and myself, now that I earn my own money."
For a moment, panic flickered up in Naruto's face. "You are welcome to stay as my guest as long as you want", he said.
"Then let me pay my share of the rent at least", Sasuke insisted.
"You don't have to. I am a rich heir now, too. The Icha-Icha-series is a great success throughout the ninja world, so that I only work in order not to get bored."
Sasuke was confused: What did Naruto mean when he said that he was a rich heir now, too? It took him some seconds to work it out.
"I have never been a rich heir", he said. "After the massacre, the clan's fortune was put under the surveillance of some trustee of the village, who saw that every week I got a small amount of money to pay for my food and other stuff I needed. At the beginning the money hardly lasted to the end of the week; later I learnt to live more economically.
Naruto listened – it sounded familiar to him. He dimly remembered that there had been a time when someone had bought food for him, but during all his academy years he had had to do it himself. "I never managed", he said. "I always tried, making rules on how much money I was allowed to spend per day, but it never worked."
"It was just too little", Sasuke remarked.
Both were silent for a few seconds.
"It got better when I was a ninja", Naruto continued in order to shake off the memories of loneliness he had fallen into. "It came as a revelation to me how life felt if you no longer had to consider every little coin you were spending."
"For me, they stopped the payments from my family's account when I earned some money of my own, so my situation did not much approve. After my desertion the clan's fortune was confiscated as a whole, with the exception of some rather small amount deposited in banks outside of Fire Country where they don't care that I'm a missing nin. Yet it's not much anyway – we've never been that wealthy from the beginning as we were in charge of the military police of Konoha and not eligible to any lucrative missions, or a job in ANBU. After the kyuubi's attack on Konoha when the clan had been ghettoized, we were even poorer. Now, with all the expenses for medical treatment for myself and Suigetsu I will soon have exhausted my reserves."
"Don't worry about Suigetsu", Naruto said. "He'll be rich and famous soon, and then he will pay for himself."
He considered Sasuke's story, which had come as a surprise to him. He had always taken it for granted that the Uchiha were not only one of the strongest and most famous clans, but also one of the wealthiest. He had always imagined that Sasuke had inherited their fortune and was free to spend it as he wished. He felt a bit ashamed now: With all his jealousy of Sasuke he had never spent much thought on how he was actually living.
"Take your time to decide whether you want to pay your share of the rent"; he said. "You are always welcome as my guest."
He was not sure whether he wanted Sasuke to pay his share. It would mean that he was no longer the host who generously offered his place to Sasuke and his team but that they'd share everything for real, and on equal terms. He'd let him into his flat not as a guest, but as an inhabitant, with little space remaining for himself. The idea scared him, and yet, when he looked at Sasuke, more beautiful than ever as his features were no longer hardened by his desire for revenge, but soft from mourning for his family, Naruto felt strangely touched and ready to push all fear away in order to be close to him.
The moment passed without a decision from Sasuke's side. (Actually he had already made up his mind that he would pay for his share and Juugo's, but he intended to wait for some more days before he informed Naruto on his decision, pretending that he was taking his time.) They returned to more mundane activities, reading or browsing the magazine with events in town, and in the afternoon Naruto decided to introduce Sasuke to the town's most popular pastime, which was not music. Music, in Music Town, was not a pastime, but serious business, work, art and a huge industry. If people wanted to relax they opted for silence.
Naruto did not tell Sasuke where they were going. From the bed, where he was reading the Gutsy Ninja, Sasuke watched him putting on a red T-Shirt with some white text on it which was in Sasuke's opinion even uglier than the orange jacket he normally wore. Then, to Sasuke's horror, Naruto tossed a T-Shirt of the same kind to him, urging him to put it on.
"You have to wear it", he said. "You have to show which side you're on." It's like that crest of your clan you always wear on your back."
Longingly Sasuke looked at his own shirt with the Uchiha symbol on it. He felt weirdly naked without it – no longer sure who he was. The other issue was that never before he had worn red and did not recognize himself in the mirror with such a brilliant colour.
"It suits you", Naruto said. "White's just too boring – red makes you look sexy." (Why did he have a talent to confuse and irritate him with his compliments? Sasuke thought. Weren't compliments meant to please the person they were given to?) "Next week you can applicate your clan's crest on it."
He insisted that they left early in order to get some good places, but also to have time to buy themselves some takeaway food for lunch and, most importantly, to enjoy the atmosphere in town as they leisurely made their way to the area where the event was going to take place. They met other groups of people wearing the same red shirt, and greeted them no matter whether they were complete strangers or people they knew as colleagues or regulars from the restaurant. Sometimes they stopped to chat, or rather to give Naruto the opportunity to chat. Sasuke was not able to contribute anything to the conversation as it was all about the upcoming event.
They also met people clad in green, and with them, there was no friendly chatting, just an exchange of provocations.
"Sing while you can!" Naruto would tell a group who were standing around some food booth, drinking beer and singing loudly and out of tune. "When the match is over, you'll be silent."
"Sure, because it was us who won the last three times", they gave back.
"They're the enemy", Naruto told Sasuke when they had passed the group, making him wonder how Naruto, who had always done his best to make friends, had managed to gain himself any enemies when he had had lived in this place for only a few weeks. "They are Center Uptown, we are Inner Center. Center Uptown begins at the town hall and runs all along the left side of Heroes' Park. I hate them – they're all rich jerks.- Ey, you jerks! Don't behave as if you own the place! We'll show you who is the true champion of this town!"
Sasuke wondered if he should look for an apartment in Center Uptown. He'd still be able to visit Naruto every day, and green did not look as stupid as red. Maybe he should ask Naruto for a quarter of town where people wore black and white.
The event itself took place on a green field in the outskirts of the town, surrounded by benches that allowed for several thousand spectators. To Sasuke it seemed quite impressive, but Naruto told him that it was still rather small. "Now it's only the quarters of town playing against each other. But in a few years when it will be popular throughout the ninja world there'll be whole towns or even countries competing against each other, and tens of thousands of people will be watching."
He had to stop explaining as the match was about to start. Tense and upright he sat on his place, concentrating on what was happening on the lawn, with little attention to spare for Sasuke.
"Look out for the guy with the number ten", he told him. "That's our hero. That's why he's wearing the number ten."
"The one with the ball?" Sasuke asked.
"No, that's Center Uptown's hero." Naruto was a bit annoyed: Was this not obvious, as the man was all in green? He turned away from Sasuke and focussed on the match: Having not much talent for music Naruto had soon turned to music town's second most important activity: its ethics of pushing oneself to one's limits for the benefit of one's team, its rivalries and its heroes, its simple rules about winning or losing, and the ambition to come out top against all adverse circumstances were something he could relate to, and watching the players he sometimes even forgot that he was far from home and that there was no prospect for a quick return. (Though being with Sasuke and helping him find his way around town had a similar effect.) Fusing with the people of his quarter of town, becoming one with them in their singing, in their joy when their team scored, or their despair when they were losing temporarily made him feel as if he was one of them and not a stranger without any friends in this place. (Even though in Sasuke's eyes he had adapted quite well and better than he, Sasuke, ever would.)
To Sasuke, the whole game simply did not make any sense. A bunch of grown-up men passing a ball among each other as they had done in Konoha when they had been kids. (Not him, however, he had had to train.) He activated his Sharingan, but while it told him how they moved to control the ball it did not help him understand the game in itself. He listened to the conversations of people around him about this or that team winning or losing, but their words did not make any sense to him either: All the men were still on their feet and running, even though sometimes one or the other was on the ground, struck down by one of the other players, or faking to be struck down, and always they were looked after by the medical staff immediately, who came rushing onto the ground, not waiting until one of the players was so seriously wounded that he was no longer able to fight because he was in need of some intense medical care.
He, Sasuke, would not have gone down for minor wounds as these, or shouted out in pain and cried for help. He would just have gone on. And as it seemed, the players themselves did not take their wounds too seriously either but were back on their feet after a few minutes of treatment. Maybe they had to behave like this, Sasuke mused, for the lack of serious attacks, so that they complained loudly whenever they were touched by another player in a way that could be hardly called a strike. Normally they were lucky and the other player was told off, and two of them, one of each side, even had to quit the game.
How were you supposed to win if you were not allowed to fight? Sasuke wondered. And how were you supposed to fight if whenever you touched your opponent the man in black would tell you off?
The man in black was the other source of wonder to Sasuke. People listened to him when he told them off. They accepted punishments. They talked to him, trying to make him change his mind, but in the end they accepted his decisions, if only grudgingly. (The spectators did not. They kept calling him a blind idiot who did not know the rules. Not knowing the rules himself Sasuke could not judge whether they were correct.)
And all this happened without him using any force, which would have been useless anyway, as he was older and weaker than most of the players. It was a strange world, and Sasuke was fascinated by it.
Everyone rose from their seats suddenly, including Sasuke, who understood that this was what you were supposed to do. Naruto cheered at the top of his voice, he embraced Sasuke and kissed him on his cheeks (without meaning anything as Sasuke realized to his disappointment.)
"I told you!" he shouted. "I told you! We are going to win! It's only five minutes left, and they can't make up for this! Not when they're still in shock."
Sasuke had no idea what had happened, and he could not ask Naruto, who was now completely absorbed by the match, torn between hope and fear for his team. The woman on his other side however felt pity for him when she saw that he was rather confused and irritated instead of enjoying the match.
"You are not from here, are you? Hasn't your friends explained you anything?"
"Nothing at all", Sasuke answered. "Why are we winning?"
"We just scored a goal", she answered, and then his confused looks told her that he was in need of even more explanations. Yet thanks to her he was able to follow the rest of the match with some more understanding, and felt glad with the people around him when Inner Center left the place as victors.
He'd definitely have to find out more about this strange activity, he decided.
A/N: The story will get a bit more serious soon again, don't worry.
