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 Forty-Seven: Sasuke messes up twice

Naruto did his best to be rational about the fact that Sasuke was obviously gay. He did his best to accept what he could no longer deny: That one day Sasuke would leave him and have sex with one of these gay men. Yet the images kept turning up in his mind, and they remained disturbing: Sasuke completely naked, being touched by one or the other of them. No longer the guy from Earth Country or his husband, as Naruto had understood now that they loved each other and did not dream of seducing Sasuke, nor any other of the men of their tournament class, whom Naruto had come to like. He preferred their loose acquaintances for these fantasies, men he knew from dance teas or free training, and often the men who molested Sasuke had no faces at all, or were just hands, touching him all over, and suddenly the hands were his own and he realized that he had been masturbating for quite some time.

He sat up and looked at Sasuke who was lying next to him, sleeping peacefully, and he had to force himself not to plunge himself into these fantasies again.

Sasuke might like it, he told himself while he washed his face with cold water. My hands, not anyone else's: He was well aware that Sasuke preferred him to the other men. It was a new and strange idea to be liked that way – Sakura would never have wanted to be touched by him, and he doubted that Hinata, who had claimed to be in love with him, would have wanted his hands on her body.

It was fortunate that Sasuke woke up so that Naruto had to stop his musings for now.

In the meantime Sasuke was suffering. He was suffering even worse than when he had been firmly convinced that Naruto was straight so that his love would remain unrequited and having some fun dancing with him before they got back to Konoha was all he could hope for. Now Naruto was dressing up and asked how he looked and cared about his opinion - Sasuke had managed to convince him to go shopping a second time, now with him as advisor, and buy some more tight, sleeveless shirts – and he offered to embrace him. But then Sasuke reminded himself that both Naruto's embraces and his habit of laying his arm around Sasuke's shoulders were well within the limits of what was normal between friends, and when they had been buying clothes Naruto had kept asking whether a piece of clothing would not make him look girly.

Not knowing whether to hope or despair Sasuke sought comfort and encouragement from the other gay men. When Naruto dropped his guard (mostly when he discussed football) Sasuke was free to talk to them without Naruto listening, and he'd ask them whether it was possible that a person changed their sexual orientation (one of the new words Sasuke had learnt in Music Town). He was told that it was impossible, but also that a number of them had realized that they were gay only when they had been well beyond puberty, denying their attraction to men even to themselves and doing their best to be normal and feel something for women. It was what Juugo's mothers had already told him, yet during these days he needed to hear it again and again from as many people as possible.

"My husband knew that he was attracted to men by the time he was fourteen", the partner of the guy from Earth Country told him. "When he was sixteen he heard that in Music Town gay people did not have to hide and came here. For him it was men in general. I however had always considered myself straight, but not really interested in sex, and my girl-friends did not mind, they even appreciated that I was not as fixated on sex as their previous lovers had been. It was only occasionally that I thought that this or that guy was rather good-looking. But when I met him it was no longer thinking that he was rather handsome, nor was it mere sexual attraction: My whole soul was in flames, and all I longed for was to be near him, and be touched by the light that seemed to emanate from him. With him I knew from the beginning that he was special, and he seemed to change me from the core of my soul. It took me some time to realize that what he really did was touch the core of my soul, which I used to hide in the presence of other people, bringing it to the light. I had to understand that this core was myself, not him, and that I had to remain myself if I wanted to be with him."

The words went well over Sasuke's head. "I've always known that Naruto is special", he answered, responding to what he understood, watching Naruto, who was explaining the causes of Inner Center's spectacular defeat at last Saturday's match. Then it occured to him that the real problem lay elsewhere.

"Do you think that he might think me special too?" he asked.

The man shrugged. "He seems quite attached to you."

"Yeah, he's clingy. Sometimes it gets annoying. But that's not the same as thinking I'm special."

"He doesn't seem too eager to find a girl", the man continued.

Sasuke considered it. "He's in love with a girl from Konoha", he said.

"Not the one he wants to marry you?"

"Yes that's the one", Sasuke answered, surprised that the man knew about Sakura. He saw the man cringing. "But I'm not interested in girls. I never was. When we return to Konoha she will have to accept it, and then she'll turn her heart to Naruto and marry him."

"And you?"

"I'll die."

Sasuke said it in a rather casual tone: He had got used to this idea a long time ago. He did not care whether he died as long as it was after getting his revenge. The man however was shocked.

"You don't die", he said, laying his arms around Sasuke. "That would be stupid, dying just because the first guy you happen to set your eyes upon happens to be straight." He turned him left and right to make him look around. "Naruto's not the only good-looking guy in the world."

Sasuke looked to the ground, feeling embarrassed. When he looked up again his eyes met Naruto's, and Naruto was obviously not happy with what he saw. Sasuke shook off the man's arm and went over to Naruto.

"What was that?" Naruto asked, laying his arm around Sasuke in his turn.

"He was comforting me, that was all. I told him of our plans for when we return to Konoha. You will marry Sakura and I will die."

"You won't die", Naruto said, caressing Sasuke's shoulder. He felt the need to brush off the other man's touch. "And anyway, you have me to comfort you, you don't need anyone else."

He returned to explaining why the decisions of Inner Center's coach during the last match had all turned out wrong.

"Naruto", Sasuke asked. "Do you think I'm special?"

Naruto looked surprised and annoyed, being interrupted in his conversation about football. "You are more conceited and arrogant than other people, that's all that's special about you", he said.

Sasuke felt hurt, but Naruto didn't care, he had to contradict one of the other men who insisted that it was not the coach's fault but that the players had grown lazy and showed a lack of ambition. When Naruto discussed football he did not give much thought to anything else.

He did not give much thought either to Sasuke's desire to learn Tango Argentino. However, when he once was on his own in the community center and happened to come upon a group of dancers in one of the seminar rooms he decided to take measures of his own.

So he was prepared when Sasuke announced that he had enregisted the two of them to a seminar of Tango Argentino that taught a style specifically created for same sex couples, meaning that the roles of leader and follower changed throughout the dance.

"I've enregistered us to a dance class too", Naruto replied. "It's called Rock 'n' Roll. It's a real sport, and includes acrobatics. That's a way of dancing that's appropriate for ninjas."

Sasuke was surprised: He would not have thought that Naruto would initiate some dancing by himself. He agreed, of course, and they just had to make sure that the two seminars were not at the same time.

"I have also considered what you said about being ninjas", he continued. "I've done some research and found out about what's called Martial Arts here. It's quite similar to our taijutsu. I've found a dojo we can use for training."

Now Naruto was surprised. He had nothing against some training with Sasuke (in fact he longed to show him how good he had become), still he wondered what Sasuke was intending: Dancing kept him distracted from his desire for revenge, but practising ninjutsu might remind him of it again. Also there was another problem.

"Is it not expensive?" he asked.

"I was able to make a deal", Sasuke said. "We teach a group of kids, and in exchange we get permission to use the dojo for free."

"You think you can teach a group of kids?"

"Yes. Why not?"

"You don't know anything about kids."

"I used to be one myself."

"Kids here are different."

"They're still kids. Are you with me or not?"

"I am", Naruto answered, sighing. "Just to make sure that you don't mess up."

Sasuke felt hurt but he didn't answer. There was no time for being offended anyway; they intended to watch the movie Naruto had rented from the shop for gay people. They carried the TV-set and the DVD-player upstairs, and then it took them some time to connect the two devices, as they were not familiar with modern technology. They managed, eventually, and got themselves some drinks and a bag of crisps, as they had heard that this was what you did when you watched TV. They sat down on the bed, Naruto played with the remote control, while Sasuke moved nearer to him so that their shoulders touched. He looked at Naruto, who smiled, and Sasuke felt encouraged to lay his arm around Naruto's shoulders – there was nothing wrong with it, was it: Naruto was doing it all the time to him.

Naruto leant against him, still focussing on the remote control and trying to figure out how it worked. Finally he managed to start the movie.

It was set in one of the countries beyond the mountains, beyond the desert, beyond the sea that had never heard of the ninja nations and that were vice versa not known in the ninja countries, except for Music Town that was more open-minded. Prejudice against gay men ran high in that place, they were considered weak, unmanly, promiscuous and unnatural. They had to hide that they were gay, and only met in clubs or even in some corner of a park in the night, sometimes hidden from the authorities, sometimes known to them and tolerated, but not officially approved.

The movie featured a couple who fell in love, and it made a point of stating that they were serious about their love and not just looking for some quick pleasure, as the cliché of the time claimed. It showed the difficulties they faced just finding opportunities to see each other, not to speak of situations where they could actually make out (they did not have sex in the movie.) It showed their efforts to hide their relationship from their family and their acquaintances, and Naruto felt with them and was angry at all those who refused to recognize the seriousness of their love.

After some time the pressure increased: New laws were passed that forbade homosexuality and set longer terms in prison as punishment. One of the lovers broke and agreed to marry a young woman while the other despaired and began to act recklessly until he was caught and convicted. Naruto suffered with him, his heart aching from his lover's betrayal, and he leant more heavily against Sasuke and clutched his hands. He felt relieved when the other lover remembered their love and sought out his friend in prison to plea for him – prison life was hard, and the man's health was failing. It did not work out, however: Not only did they not release the first lover, but also they were overcome by their passion and got caught, and this time it was death penalty for both of them.

By the time the movie ended Naruto was crying, and he felt all stiff and tense with emotion. Sasuke caressed his shoulder and his hands, trying to comfort him. He himself had managed to retain some distance from the movie, getting annoyed at clichés and particularly getting annoyed that five minutes of the movie had been reserved for the wedding night of the guy who had married a woman, while the two men themselves had only been shown kissing. (By now he longed to know how lovers had sex with each other, as opposed to the sex he had watched between Kabuto and Orochimaru.) Also he enjoyed holding Naruto in his arms and comforting him far too much to feel sad for the guys in the movie, and besides, he thought it was all their own fault: Why did one of them marry a woman, and the other have sex with men he wasn't in love with?

Still he was affected by the movie but not by its personal moments. The fact that gay men had not only been despised and ostracized but also actively hunted down and even convicted to death, not for any crime but for loving each other, had been new to him. But then he knew nothing about places beyond the ninja countries, and not much about the ninja countries themselves either.

He would have been prosecuted in these places too, he thought, not for being an Uchiha but for being gay. It was an oddly satisfying thought – satisfying because it confirmed him in his anger against the world that had been intent on excluding him and his people from its soil. (Not Music Town, however. He excluded Music Town and its inhabitants from his grudge.) Also it gave him a sense of connection to other gay people everywhere, even though he had been prosecuted for being an Uchiha, not for being gay. They'd been hated for nothing, he thought, and he was glad to be one of them.

Naruto had still not moved, except that he was caressing Sasuke's hand that held his own hands.

"Next time we'll choose a movie with a happy ending", Sasuke said.

"Yeah", Naruto answered, sitting up and slowly recovering from his sadness. "You won't leave me again, will you?`"

"I won't", Sasuke answered, feeling confused. He was gay and Naruto was straight, wasn't he? He got up to make some tea for the two of them, not without caressing Naruto's shoulder. When the water was boiling he understood what Naruto had referred to and why he had been that strongly affected by the movie. "I will stay with you", he said. "You have promised me to find a way to avenge my family, haven't you?"

Naruto nodded. His thoughts returned to the movie, and the ideas it conferred about gay men.

"This place the movie was about", he began, "it was quite similar to the larger towns of the ninja countries, actually. Not Music Town, of course, where gay people make out on the lawn just as anyone else, but like the capitals of Fire Country or Wind Country. Gay people there meet in bars and clubs just as in the movie."

Sasuke listened interestedly. He had never been to any of the larger cities and had no idea about gay life there, but he had read about it: "In the magazine you bought it was said that Danzou closed the one gay bar that existed in Konoha."

"Oh, did he?" Naruto said. He was not in a mood to discuss Danzou's actions at the moment, nor to listen to Sasuke's reproaches that he had not made any progress with finding a plan for his revenge. "I was not aware that there were any gay bars in Konoha. Anyway, on my journeys with Jiraiya we sometimes went to these bars in order to collect information. They were good sources normally, as drunk people tend to be careless about what they say, and also gay people are not very patriotic. Now I understand why: They have no reason to be patriotic if the state persecutes them."

"In Music Town they are as patriotic as anyone else", Sasuke replied.

"People here aren't patriotic at all", Naruto said. "They don't have to, as Music Town is too small to be taken seriously by anyone. The only thing people are patriotic for here are their football clubs." He thought about it. "Actually gay people support their teams just as anyone else. So it's true perhaps that they are not unpatriotic by nature."

Sasuke, who had been eager to defend both gay people and the inhabitants of Music Town, was content. He considered some further implications of what Naruto had said: "You mean you went to gay bars with Jiraiya when you were a kid?" He wondered what Naruto might have seen there: Maybe it had been just as bad as what he had watched between Orochimaru and Kabuto. "Were you allowed there?"

"Jiraiya bribed the cashiers", Naruto said. "He always warned me, however, telling me that these gay men always thought about sex, which struck me as strange as Jiraiya always thought about sex too."

He considered it. "I guess I was completely naive then. I did not understand that Jiraiya was warning me that they might take an interest in me. I thought them just funny, even though Jiraiya's ideas about them being weak and effeminate had made an impact on me. Actually I had no idea what being gay was about, not even when I saw the men kissing. After some time Jiraiya stopped taking me with him to these bars. People had given him funny looks, I think. But on one day he made me stay with a couple of friends of his so that he might collect information, though in reality he went to meet one of his female acquaintances. It was weird first to listen to his list of bad character traits and then see him greet them as old friends."

Sasuke shifted in his chair. This could get interesting.

"They were quite nice however. We did some cooking together, then we ate what we had cooked, and when we had put the dishes into the dish-washing machine we played a board game."

He grew melancholic. "Actually it was the closest thing to family life I ever had. I could not believe that they were as weird as Jiraiya had said, so I asked them whether they really enjoyed fucking other men in their ass."

Sasuke remembered that Naruto had never known which questions he should rather not ask.

"They asked me who had given me this information, and then told me to ask Jiraiya whether he enjoyed to fuck women in their ass. Then they explained to me that being gay was not about having sex but about falling in love with other men. To long for someone with all your heart, to be in heaven when he's with you, and despair when he is far away, and to care for him and make his wellbeing the most important aim of your life."

He remembered how he had thought of Sasuke when he had heard these words back then, longing more for him than he had ever longed for Sakura. He would not tell this Sasuke now, however, who was waiting eagerly for the continuation of the story. He would not tell him how his heart had reached out to him when he had heard the men's words, how he had longed to be near him again. He still longed for him, even though he was with him now, only at a few metres' distance, looking rather impatient. He'd just have to get up and bridge the little distance that was still between them, embrace him, kiss him, become so close to him that nothing would separate them any more.

"But they had sex too, hadn't they?" Sasuke asked, interrupting Naruto's fantasies.

"Well, yes, they had", Naruto answered, rather annoyed. Sasuke's question had scattered all his romantic feelings, and the warmth that had engulfed him. "At least they told me so when I asked them"

Sasuke looked satisfied, and Naruto was even more annoyed.

"Let's get the TV-set downstairs", he said.