To anyone who may still be following this, um, I guess I should say I'm mostly on ao3 now, since I'm falling behind here. Not that I'm normally any kind of consistent, but I've been trying to clean up stuff, reorganising things, and it's just easier over there?
Guest: Oh, thank you for reading. ^^;; I appreciate that you like how I've written them, but please don't feel dismayed. Everyone writes differently, and you only need to give yourself the chance.
...
"I didn't see you look."
...
Sugar in the Marmalade
Naruto didn't mean to find himself staring. Because it's not like he was looking that way on purpose or anything. At the right place, at the right time, he just happened to glance over, just so happened to stare a second or two longer, while literally passing right by a girl who maybe kind of looked like his type.
Except not really.
For one, she was a little too tall, a little taller than him even, with straight dark hair that barely reached her shoulders. With the dark t-shirt and dark jeans, she looked more like one of those high fashion model types, really, rather than the cute and shy, pretty actress types he knows he'd typically fall for. But this girl, she was more angles than curves. All legs. Flat chest. Just the sort of stuff that's more or less noticeable at first glance, if only because it's the near opposite of what would personally stand out to him as physically attractive.
(He's always been into girls with large breasts, wide hips, and soft thighs—not anymore the unrealistic proportions he and seemingly every other guy had in mind at fourteen, but he's matured enough to admit he's still very much a product of his uncle's influence that began at sixteen.)
More so than just her looks, though, there was something about her, something in a way that almost reminds him of Mei and how she carried herself, with this kind of silently commanding presence, a more subtle sort of confidence, reflected in the way she kept her gaze straight, held her head high.
Sure, there's no denying she was still gorgeous, but even with her dark eyes and her pale skin, that's all she had in common with the type of girl he'd normally go for in the past, nowhere near enough to make him think twice about a pretty face he just happened to pass by on the street, so he's not really sure what it was about her that suddenly caught his attention now.
Or maybe he's just thinking too hard about this.
That's probably what Sasuke would say.
Not that he wants Sasuke to think he's thinking too hard about this, because he doesn't want Sasuke to think he would ever look at another person like that, but when he does turn to Sasuke walking beside him, in an increasingly less understated form of excitement, Sasuke glancing between his phone and the occasional street signs scattered among the too many small and outwardly cramped buildings surrounding them, not paying Naruto any attention whatsoever (apparently, trying to find the little pop-up calligraphy shop Chouji told him about is way more important than the concentrated, inner turmoil that his own permanent roommate is obviously going through in front of him), that's when Naruto's mind really starts to wander, because suddenly he's starting to think that maybe the reason he found himself staring at a girl who wasn't even his type in the first place, might've actually had nothing to do with her at all.
"I wasn't staring at her," he blurts out, too rushed, almost too loud, so, he says a little quieter, a little slower, "Which means I definitely wasn't checking her out or anything."
Sasuke glances at him with an eyebrow raised, in dark eyes, a slightly confused look that's starting to lean more towards something bordering on highly disturbed, rather than cautiously concerned, which, honestly, is a look Sasuke doesn't hesitate to give him far more often than Naruto thinks is even necessary. "A girl you weren't checking out."
"I mean, the tall, model-looking girl we just passed by back there, with the dark hair and the—her, in that way, I wasn't, um, staring...at her."
"I didn't say you were?"
"Oh," Naruto says, not sure why there's something odd in his voice that almost sounds disappointed, but it's a passing sensation that's easy enough for him to push aside. "Well, okay. Just putting it out there, I guess. Because I don't want you to think I was..."
"I wouldn't think that about you, Naruto. I know you were attracted to girls before. It's not as if I expected you to suddenly stop finding them attractive now."
Although he still doesn't find other guys attractive, either, so Sasuke really is the exception for him, the one person in the world it really does feel like he's perfect for, because he really can't see himself spending the rest of his life with anyone else, but he also can't pretend it wasn't kind of a sensitive issue for Sasuke in the beginning, when they first started to get into the more physical aspects of their relationship.
Of course, it had less to do with Sasuke being a guy and more to do with his own fears about being too much, about being overbearing to the point of finally pushing Sasuke away, but he never wanted Sasuke to feel like being a guy was ever that kind of issue for him, and he'll continue to do everything in his power to make sure Sasuke never has a reason to feel like that with him ever again.
"Whether you looked at her or not," Sasuke says, "it's not a big deal. Yeah, I have my preferences, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to everything else. If she was pretty, she was pretty. I don't have anything to do with that. Besides, I doubt you were the first person to notice her, and I doubt you'll be the last."
At first, he wasn't sure how Sasuke would react, but that kind of explanation isn't too far from what he's come to expect. He already knows Sasuke's not the jealous type, and there are certain things about their relationship he does trust Sasuke to be honest about, that he knows Sasuke will put aside his own reservations for, even when it makes him uncomfortable, because Sasuke understands how much that means to him.
About this, though, Sasuke's clearly unbothered by the somewhat awkward admission, which is kind of starting to feel more and more unnecessary after the fact. And maybe it is. Maybe there really was no reason for him to even bring it up, but he just didn't want to make Sasuke question anything about what they have together—even if it was just the slightest little doubt, that'd already be too much.
And yet, listening to Sasuke, somehow, it feels like he's being set up for something he probably doesn't want any part of. He still goes along with it, though, because Sasuke doesn't seem upset about it, having pretty much shrugged the whole thing off. If he was upset, they'd being having a very different type of conversation right now; Sasuke still might not say a lot of things, but if there is something that's bothering him, whether Sasuke will actually say anything about it or not, by now, Naruto knows and understands more than enough about Sasuke, to be able to pick up on those kinds of things.
"Well, if that's the case, as pretty as she was, as close to us as she was, I didn't see you look."
"No," Sasuke draws out a little too carefully, very suspiciously so, as he lowers his gaze, takes his time pushing away the hair fallen over the side of his face, revealing teeth dragged slow over the corner of his bottom lip, before he lifts his gaze back to Naruto, peers up with this somehow still unexpectedly shy kind of expression in impossibly dark eyes, a look that Naruto already knows better than to consider remotely close to any kind of shy at all.
"But it's not like you're the only incredibly hot guy anyone's ever passed on the street."
And with that, Sasuke's already turning away, leaving an all but gaping Naruto standing at the corner of the sidewalk intersecting with the narrow alley that's apparently their destination.
Closing his mouth, Naruto frowns a little, watching Sasuke heading towards what looks like the pop-up calligraphy shop they took the train all the way to this part of Kanagawa for.
It's really not that busy outside today, a lot less crowded than he first thought it'd be, so it's okay that he needs to give himself a few extra seconds to think over Sasuke words, and that it takes two or three seconds more for the meaning of what Sasuke said to actually get through.
In his defence, however, he's still sort of hung-up on the fact that Sasuke just called his boyfriend incredibly hot, that Sasuke willingly and openly admitted to thinking of him as that kind of attractive, this time without the threat of pulling teeth even being involved, but when he does catch up to Sasuke, as he follows Sasuke inside the tiny little shop, to the large display of papers and brushes and inks and pens, when the words finally do sink in—
"W-w-wait—what?"
