Naruto and Sasuke; ramen on rainy days.
[November 29th, 2003]
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It was one of those mornings, the kind where it was cold and wet and the sky took great pains in making everyone as miserable as possible (meaning it was vomiting out buckets of rain and sleet and slush and even the occasional cat or dog). Naruto had, at some point or other, glued himself to his refrigerator and the surroundings thereof. The floor was cold. The fridge light had died out sometime during the night. Naruto hated it that when that happened, but that wasn't the biggest problem here.
The problem was—he had no food.
Naruto, strangely, did not panic at this. Not yet, at least.
After studying the eight-tentacled beast masquerade as meatloaf in his fridge for some time, he caught sight of his calendar. It read, in big bold letters (highlighted violent-orange): December 1st, 1997—DAY OFF.
He grinned.
And then frowned, just as quickly.
What was the purpose of getting up so early, then? He could've just—he could've just—tucked himself back in and burrow inside where it was nice and toasty, and not out /here/ where it was wet and cold and perfectly miserable. The main problem was, he was so hungry and there was nothing edible in his fridge except for week-old lettuce (rabbit food! he thought pathetically, and really, he didn't even want to /think/ about the meatloaf); and he gave a tiny whimper at that—
The doorbell rang. He went to go open it, still bemoaning the barren state of his fridge. It wasn't until he yanked the door open that the thought crossed his mind: why would anyone show up on his doorstep, much less this early in the morning?
And it, of course, turned out to be one Uchiha Sasuke.
Not that he hadn't been /expecting/ it, the kind of the morning this was turning out to be, but of all people—? He'd always thought Sasuke was the type to stay in during rainy days (just a clever hunch of his, was all), doing whatever he did at home. Though from what Naruto'd seen of his house, it looked like he didn't /have/ anything to do. Unless you counted reading some dusty books or sitting on the sofa without a television in sight and just...sitting as something to do.
"Here," the other boy said without any sort of hello at all, and thrust a large brown bag at Naruto. "You left it the other day and Kakashi told me to get it back to you."
He blinked. "Eh?" Took the bag, cautiously. "What is it?" Looked in.
"Don't tell me you forg—"
And looked back up, gaping. "Where's your umbrella?"
"—got already. Here," and he gave it a shake. Droplets of water danced down to the porch. "Why?"
"But—but—"
A scowl. "But nothing."
"But you live on the other side of town!"
"What are you talking about?" He stepped inside but paused, as if he weren't planning to stay—gave a brief shake of his head and stared at Naruto with contemptuous eyes. The movement reminded Naruto, curiously enough, of a wet dog shaking out its fur. "It's a three-minute walk."
"But—but—" And he was still gaping. "You got me ramen! You! Uchiha Sasuke!"
"Baka," Sasuke said, "You got yourself ramen at the supermarket yesterday. I'm just giving it back to you because you were stupid enough to leave it behind."
Naruto paused in burrowing through the contents of the bag just long enough to take a good, long look at Sasuke's face.
"What?"
He kept right on staring until Sasuke sighed. "No, I didn't poison it."
Naruto gave him the evilest eye he could possibly muster up at six in the morning, then slowly turned his attention back to his bag. His bag. There was ramen in it, mostly, but some kitchenware too ('cause he'd accidentally tossed some of his old forks out with the trash the other day), a few sticks of margarine, and a supersize jar of peanut butter. Funny, he could've sworn he hadn't bought this much ramen—there had to be two dozen bags in there at least. Even ninjas had budgets, and very low ones at that.
"I'm going back," Sasuke said. The umbrella shook off raindrops again. "And, oh," he paused at the overhang, back still turned. "I had some leftovers, so..." There was a moment when the other boy sounded almost reluctant. "Have fun. I guess."
With that he strode off, leaving Naruto gaping unceremoniously at the foyer. The rain blew in and scattered water all over the carpet, prompting him to slam shut the door. After that he leaned against it and blinked at the far wall. And after /that/ he talked himself off his ass and into making the ramen, damnit, because like hell he was going to let perfectly good ramen go to waste.
It was only an hour later that he noticed the expiration dates on half the discarded miso-flavored noodle wrappings, too tiny for the casual eye to catch. "Best eaten," Naruto read aloud, with something like panic catching in the pit of his stomach, "November 12th, 1996."
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~fin~