"Would you shut up ?" Sasuke snapped, sick of his teammate's incessant whining. He'd finally felt some measure of respect for the blond when they'd been able to work together to help Inari once again, but of course he had to go and ruin it by acting like a needy child .

"But bastard ," Naruto complained for the hundredth time, "My coupon's gone !"

Sasuke's eye twitched, but he forced himself to take a deep breath. "Will you be quiet if I buy you a bowl of ramen?"

Naruto immediately brightened, all previous troubles forgotten. "Will you, bastard? Really?" he asked with large, starry eyes.

Sasuke squinted, forcing the image of an overager puppy out of his mind. In hindsight, his offer might not have been his best idea. He knew, though, that he'd have a whole different problem on his hands if he were to rescind it now, so he reluctantly nodded.

"Hell yeah!" Naruto exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air. "Ra-men, ra-men, ra-men !"

" Naruto ."

The blond froze, briefly, before letting out a sheepish laugh. "Right, quiet. I can do that." He mimed zipping his lips while attempting to look serious, though he appeared more constipated than anything.

Unfortunately, he began to grow antsy barely a minute later, and it wasn't until he 'unzipped' his lips and started taking in gasping breaths that Sasuke realized that Naruto was much more of an idiot than he'd initially assumed.

"...Soooo," Naruto eventually said after getting over a miniature coughing fit, "Are you excited to get back home?"

Sasuke didn't dignify him with more than a grunt in response.

"Oh, c'mon bastard," Naruto whined, "Don't go all emo on me now. Give me something to work with here." When Sasuke still failed to reply, lips firmly pressed together, Naruto let out an over-exaggerated groan. "Well, I know I'm excited to get back home," he said, unprompted. "I can't wait to see Iruka-sensei and tell him and Jiji about our mission. And I'm really lookin' forward to that bowl of ramen you're gonna buy me."

The blond's grin turned smug when Sasuke's expression soured. "So what are you gonna do when we get back? Y'know, aside from—"

"Yes, I remember what I promised you not five minutes ago ," Sasuke gritted out, then forced out a breath through his nose. Just to get Naruto off his back, he offered a short, "I don't know. Sleep. Train."

" Whaaat ? That's so boring, y'know!" Naruto shouted, scandalized.

Sasuke wondered, sometimes, if he was purposefully trying to rupture everyone else's eardrums, or if that was just his default setting. Now that he'd been forced to spend extended periods of time around the blond, he was beginning to dread that it was the latter. Somehow, it was much worse if he didn't actually know what he was doing.

"Don't you wanna do something fun ?" Naruto continued. "Like hang out with your friends, or play some pranks, or go and get ramen, or…"

Those are all things youlike to do, dumbass , Sasuke thought sourly, but chose not to say. "I don't have time for any of that," he said instead, because the blond looked like he might continue if he refused to respond.

Naruto's face scrunched up. "Huh? What the hell's that supposedta mean?"

"It means that I don't have time to ' hang out ' with anyone," Sasuke bit out, suddenly irritated. It was a talent of Naruto's, it seemed, to bring out the worst in him. "Not with anyone, and especially not with you ."

"Wh— hey, you don't need to be an asshole!" Naruto shot back. "What's got you so worked up anyway?! You don't always have to shove that stick so far up your ass, y'know!"

"Just shut up," Sasuke hissed.

"Shut up?! You were the one who started being an ass out of nowhere! Just tell me what's wrong!"

"It's none of your business ."

"I'm your teammate ," Naruto protested, red in the face. "Of course it's my business!"

"That means nothing."

"That means everything !"

"You—"

"Don't you remember what I said to you before?! We're supposed to be looking out for each other, but we can't do that if you keep shoving us all away!" Naruto interrupted, and suddenly, it didn't sound like he was only talking about Sasuke anymore.

"I didn't ask for your help," he spat, injecting venom into his tone. "You're all just hanging on like leeches ."

For a moment, Naruto looked hurt, and all words that Sasuke might've said afterwards died on his tongue. A moment later, though, the blond's expression steeled, then softened.

"This has something to do with that guy, doesn't it?"

Sasuke felt his blood run cold. " What ?"

"The one you said you needed to kill," Naruto elaborated. "Back in the forest with Haku, and when we introduced ourselves on that rooftop."

Sasuke felt numbness sweep through his bones, before it was replaced by pure rage. For whatever reason, though, he couldn't bring himself to speak.

"We can help, y'know," Naruto offered a moment later, even though he looked a little unsure.

Sasuke worked his jaw. All he could manage to get out was a harsh, " What ?"

"Me, Sakura, and Kakashi-sensei," Naruto continued, growing more confident as he spoke. "Let us help you kill that guy," he said like it was the simplest thing in the world. "We're gonna be the best, right? He won't be able to take us all at once."

"Yes he could ," Sasuke spat out, the words rolling off his tongue unbiddenly. He felt his throat start to close, and his eyes begin to burn, much to his embarrassment. "He could ."

He could kill you all, he didn't say. He could take you away from me, just like he did with everyone else.

"And only I can kill him," he added nearly a full minute later, sounding distant to his own ears.

Naruto eyed him only for a moment before, much to Sasuke's surprise, backing down . "Okay," he agreed. "You can kill him. But ," he continued with a lopsided grin, "We can still help hold him back, y'know. Besides, it's not like we're gonna go after him now . We'll train until he's no match for us, and then we'll go kick his ass."

It's not that simple , Sasuke wanted to say. He didn't, if only because he felt as if the wind had been knocked from his lungs.

"So?" the blond continued, head tilted to the side. "Whaddya say, bastard? We hold, you stab?"

Sasuke felt hysteria bubble up within his chest and, despite himself, he snorted.

He'd despised the idea of being put on a team, and had only grown more averse to the idea when he'd learned who his supposed 'teammates' were. He'd been stuck with a deadlast and a fangirl for peers, and a lazy, incompetent loser for a sensei; only a blind, old fool would look at that lineup and think that it'd end up even remotely well.

And then he'd been proven wrong when Wave began. When Naruto, the dead last , made a plan before him. When Naruto helped start patching together their team, when Naruto was the one who first warmed Kakashi up to the idea of further training, when Naruto defeated Haku on the bridge, and when Naruto became the village's hero not once, but twice . Even Kakashi and Sakura had started to take the whole 'team' thing a little more seriously as they trudged through the mess that was the Wave mission.

He expected to be annoyed by that - enraged that they could solve problems and do things that he couldn't - but instead, somewhere down the line, he began thinking of them as people to surpass rather than as nuisances.

And it was terrifying, to say the least.

If he let anyone in, they could be ripped away from him at any second. If he didn't put all of his energy into training, he might never get strong enough to defeat that man . If he made one wrong move , everything could come crashing down around him.

He'd never admit it, of course. Barely to himself, and definitely not to anyone else.

But .

If only briefly, he wondered what it'd be like to have others by his side when he defeated Itachi. Proved to him that he was wrong for once, and that Sasuke didn't have to do what he did in order to gain power.

So he swallowed back any harsh words he might've said and simply turned away. "We should go meet up with the others," he said. It was undoubtedly a dismissal, but it made Naruto's smile soften nonetheless.

"Yeah," he agreed, then gave a sly smile. "First one to find them has to buy the other ramen," he said, then took off in a dead sprint.

Sasuke watched after him, briefly stunned, before picking up speed. "I'm already buying you ramen, usuratonkachi!" he shouted after him, feeling his lips curl upwards despite himself. "And I don't even like ramen that much!"

"More for me then!" Naruto called back cackling, then screamed when a fiery kunai sailed his way. "Y-you… That's cheating!"

Sasuke smirked as he caught up with him. "All's fair in love and war," he quoted before bursting forwards, sending chips of wood flying towards the blond.

From behind him, an indignant screech echoed throughout the woods. " BASTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARD!"

A/N:

my update schedule is immaculate

this isn't sasuke being immediately accepting or anything, hence why he doesn't outright agree with naruto at the end
...but i understand if you think this is going too fast, bc i have no idea what i'm doing ;)

anyway
Thanks for reading!