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And the Beat Goes On
Chapter 12 : Vignettes

Naruto skidded to a stop in the doorframe of the English classroom, just as the bell rang, signalling the start of the day. Wide-eyed, he glanced furiously about the room. Finding no sign of Sasuke, he pushed himself away from the door and proceeded to take off down the hall again.

However, he never got farther than a few steps away from the door before he was grabbed by the back of his shirt and dragged - literally - back into the room.

"Brat, where do you think you're going? Class is in here."

Naruto struggled blindly against the teacher's grip, cussing and threatening Tsunade with promises of bodily harm. Not that this was anything new.

Once having successfully manoeuvred her student into the classroom, the blonde woman shut the door and glared at Naruto. Naruto glared right back.

"Take your seat, Uzumaki," she said, crossing her arms and walking to her desk.

Naruto didn't budge.

"I said, take your seat."

Still, Naruto refused to move. Then, with a sudden burst of inspiration, Naruto was moving. He made a headlong dash for the door, and surprisingly, he stumbled out into the hall. Recovering from his momentary shock, he took off down the hall before the damned hag of a teacher could catch him again.

He looked back only once, to see his teacher hanging out of the door. "Brat! Where the hell are you going!"

"None of your business, you old hag!" he retorted, then promptly turned a corner.

Tsunade sighed and rolled her eyes. Naruto was so going to fail English. She'd make sure of it. She shut the door behind her.

It was at that point, one Inuzuka Kiba decided to make a crack at Naruto's expense. "He probably ran off to find his boyfriend, Tsunade-sensei," he said, with utmost sincerity, gesturing to Sasuke's empty seat.
A few of the kids chuckled. A few others just rolled their eyes. Honestly, couldn't Kiba just grow up?

Tsunade merely sighed and commenced the lesson.

- - - - - - - - - -

Orochimaru poked Itachi with the end of his pencil. Itachi jumped slightly, then turned to glower at Orochimaru.

The older boy just smirked. Then, he turned his expression serious and whispered, "What's wrong?"

Itachi said nothing and turned away. He returned his gaze to the question he was answering. His pencil scratched over the paper a few times, leaving some unintelligible marks that could be interpreted as numbers on the page.

Orochimaru waited.

Itachi sighed and let the pencil fall out of his hand, then glared at Orochimaru. "You're annoying, you know that?"

Orochimaru frowned. "No," he retorted. "I just do what's best for you."

Itachi rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

Orochimaru poked him again. "Now, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Don't give me that crap, sweetie," Orochimaru said, feeling a little exasperated at his lover's lack of ability to openly admit things. He reached over and pinched the other boy's cheek, which got him slapped.

"Don't," Itachi hissed, glancing around, as if he expected some sort of ambush or something.

It was Orochimaru's turn to roll his eyes. "Good grief. You're such a contradiction. You say that you don't care what people think about you and then you pull this kind of shit."

He narrowed his eyes in annoyance.

Itachi said nothing in reply. Instead, they stopped talking and turned back to their respective work.

- - - - - - - - -
Naruto's shoes slapped the floor and echoed, the slapping sound seeming twenty times louder in the empty hall. He glanced from left to right, trying to think of where Sasuke would have gone. Maybe he'd gone to the nurse's office?

How many freakin' washrooms did one school need!

He'd walked by six or seven at least!

Sighing, he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked into the next washroom he found.

Well, what luck! He found Sasuke on the first try!

Unfortunately, his "prize" didn't look too healthy. Sasuke was leaning heavily on the counter. All the colour had drained from his face, leaving him paler than new fallen snow. His hair straggled down his cheeks, sticking to them, clinging for dear life.

"Sasuke? Are you okay?"

The older boy shook his head, but made no reply. Apparently, he couldn't spare the breath to do it.

Naruto took a hesitant step toward Sasuke. "What's wrong?"

Sasuke looked up from the sink, giving him a pointed look, which told him everything and nothing at the same time.

Sunlight filtered in through the frosted window and danced across the counter top.

Naruto walked into the rest room, until he was standing at Sasuke's side. Almost shyly, he put his hands on the dark-haired boy's shoulders. "Can you walk?" he asked, feeling rather stupid. He had no idea how to deal with this situation.

Sasuke shook his head. "Dunno," he puffed.

"You should see the nurse," Naruto mused.

Sasuke made no reply.

Naruto glanced down concernedly. "Sasuke?"

"What?" was his tired reply.

Naruto looked away. "Nothing," he mumbled.
The sunbeams continued to play on the counter top.

They were silent for a long time. Hesitantly, Naruto reached down and took Sasuke's hand in his own. "Don't you die," he whispered, his voice choking up and belaying him.

Sasuke glanced up at him, as if confused by the statement.

Naruto said nothing more and merely tightened his grip on the cold, shaky hand with in his own.

It all came crashing back.

Contrary to popular belief, Naruto did remember his parents, he had known them, if only so briefly that he barely recalled them at all.

He remembered. . .

His memory was foggy, and it was all in fractured pieces. He remembered his father - the same shock of blond hair, the same piercing blue eyes. And he remembered his mother, who had been slight and willowy in frame.

He remembered, failingly, that one day, his father had gone away. They place he had called home for such a short time was strangely silent and his mother cried all the time. He remembered trying to comfort her, but every time she looked at him, she'd burst out in tears anew.

His father had been sick. He hadn't understood it then, but his father had been dying.

He hadn't known it then, but he did now. His father was dead.

Shortly afterward, his mother had left him to some people he barely knew and never came to know any better.

He could vividly recall her walking away. She never once looked back. He often wondered how she could condemn him to a life of misery and loneliness, without so much as looking back to make sure that he would be okay with these people.

He didn't know what had happened to her after that.

He didn't know, but he thought that maybe he'd been three or four at that point.

He didn't want that to happen again.

If Sasuke died, would someone else abandon him too?

He didn't want to lose anyone else. He didn't want to lose, he didn't want to lose. . .
"Hey."

The voice was soft, and fading, like a whisper of the summer wind, but it brought him back to his senses and he looked at Sasuke, who was looking up at him, trying to read his face.

Their hands were still entwined.

"What's wrong? You're crying."

Hastily, Naruto rubbed his tears away with the back of his hand. "Am not," he said defensively.

Sasuke smiled, ever so slightly. "Whatever," he murmured.

"You've got to see a doctor," Naruto said, helping Sasuke stand up and stay standing.

"Hn," was all Sasuke said.

- - - - - - - -

"K-Kiba. . .M-may I t-talk to you?"

Kiba turned around to face Hinata, who was standing slightly behind him, with her eyes downcast.

"Yeah, sure. What is it?"

Hinata kept her eyes focussed on the floor. "Um. . .well. . .I just wanted t-to tell you that. . .uh. . .I didn't think it was very nice, what you said about N-naruto," she finished in a rush. Only then did she raise her eyes and look at Kiba.

Kiba regarded her for a moment, then shrugged and said, "Yeah. Whatever."

He started to walk away. She caught him by the wrist. "No! I mean it! Naruto doesn't deserve that kind of treatment, even if he is gay!" she cried.

Her outburst caught both of them off-guard. Hinata looked away, as if ashamed, a blush tinting her cheeks.

Kiba could only stare for a moment, and then his expression softened and he murmured, "Okay, Hinata. I won't say anything, especially if you don't want me to."

Hinata smiled slightly. "Thank you," she whispered and gave his hand a gentle squeeze, just to show her gratitude.
Then, without further conversation, she took off. Kiba sighed.

- - - - - - - - -

The locker door slammed. It quivered in fear, and so it should have been afraid. It was currently the most unfortunate object in the world. It had been the object Itachi had decided to vent his ire on.

Orochimaru, who was standing slightly to the younger's left, was just as vehement, if not more. "You know, you make me sick, sometimes, Itachi! You keep everything to yourself and you can't be bothered to get help!"

Itachi glared. "I don't need your help, anyway!"

"See! There you go again, always closing everybody off! Just face the facts! You are human!"

"I do not need anybody's help, Orochimaru! I'm sick and tired of relying on people!"

"Yeah, and you know what! It's even worse not relying on people, and having to be your own pillar of support, so take it while you can get it! People won't wait around forever!"

"Then why are you still here!"

"I'm not going to be, 'cause, dammit, I'm getting sick and tired of waiting for you to come to your senses!"

"Good!"

"Fine!"

They didn't care if everyone in the hall was staring at them. They just kept screaming at each other, until, finally, their paths separated and they went their separate ways.

- - - - - - - - -

Sakura hesitated, then walked into the nurse's office. She spotted Naruto instantly. He was sitting in a chair, fidgeting nervously.

She swallowed and approached him slowly.

This was going to be harder than she initially thought.

She'd never really conversed with Naruto before, and on any occasion she had, she'd gone out of her way to be unnecessarily cruel to him.
Added to that fact was the lingering idea that she was obsessed with Sasuke, and appearing while he was supposedly very sick didn't help that image either. All in all, Naruto was probably going to think that she was merely there because she was worried about Sasuke.

And truthfully, she was. Even if he had said that they couldn't even be friends, she was going to prove that he was wrong for once.

But Naruto. . .

Naruto was going to think that she was apologizing to him and sympathizing with him, just to get to Sasuke.

That wasn't the truth at all.

She cleared her throat and looked about nervously.

Naruto looked up, and for that brief second, she could see that his face was stained with tears and his eyes were full of regret and worry. Then, his face was gone again, hidden by the mop of gold that he called hair.

"What do you want?" he muttered and his voice was strained, as if he'd been drained of all emotion and was devoid of any sympathy.

She glanced around nervously. She tried to open her mouth to speak, but she couldn't find anything to say.

What could she say to him?

Apologizing wouldn't fix anything. Any hope of friendship that had ever been between them had been soiled and tarnished by her mistreatment.

". . .I'm sorry," she found herself saying, and she found herself surprised to feel so remorseful.

But it also sounded so pathetic, and so weak that she felt stupid the second it left her mouth.

"Everyone is," Naruto said and for once in her life, she was baffled by his words.

"They're all sorry," he said, continuing in a sort of broken way that almost scared her. "But it doesn't matter now."

She felt like asking him why it didn't matter, and why everyone was sorry, but he answered those questions before she could even ask them.

"He's going to die."
Instantly, she was on her knees, glaring up at him. She closed one of her hands tightly about his wrist. "Don't say that!" she cried.

"Why not? It's the truth."

She felt anger welling up inside her. What had happened to the ever optimistic Naruto that everyone knew! This wasn't Naruto. She didn't know this person. Blue eyes drowned her in their sorrow.

She had never really known Naruto, had she?

But still! She felt desperate, and she desperately wanted to see the flamboyant Naruto of old and she lashed out with words to try and revive him.

"No! It's not the truth, you idiot! He's going to live, but he needs you to believe that too! You need to believe in him!"

She felt tears brimming in her eyes and she didn't know why. "Please! You can't give up on him. Not yet, not yet. . ."

She lowered her head in shame, her resolve too weak to go on and her eyes not strong enough to dam the tears that overflowed them now.

"Sakura. . ."

His hand rested on the top of her head. His voice was soft, condoling. She raised her eyes. "Go," he said and his expression trembled, belaying that he was on the verge of tears again.

She nodded once and she rose to her feet, not hesitating to stay where she had hesitated to go.

- - - - - - - - -

Naruto glanced up upon hearing footsteps. He really didn't want to be bothered right now, not while he was drowning in his own self-pity.

He recognized those shoes.

This person would not be easily deterred.

Gaara sat down next to him and for a long, long while, they were silent.

"I really am very sorry all this happened," the crimson-haired boy said finally.

His gaze was fixed on the wall, even when he said that, and even when Naruto looked at him.
"I never meant for it to go so far."

Naruto turned his gaze back to the floor. Gaara said nothing more. They were silent for a long time more.

Finally, Gaara rose from his seat. He looked pointedly at Naruto. "If you ever need anything, and I do mean anything, you know who you can turn to," he said.

With that, he was gone and Naruto was alone again. He sighed and settled back down in his chair.

- - - - - - -

The sun shone brightly down on the three o'clock world. Ino kicked a rock out of her path. Shikamaru was walking beside her.

They were acting like nothing had ever happened. Everything was perfectly normal between them. That kiss thing had never happened.

Shikamaru glanced over that blonde girl, trying to find the motivation to say to her what he'd been meaning to say all day.

She looked over at him, and they both abruptly looked away.

"Nice day," Ino commented dryly.

"Hn," Shikamaru retorted.

They said nothing more until they reached Ino's gate. The girl started up the walkway, into the front yard.

"Ino," Shikamaru said, leaning lazily on the gate.

She paused and turned back, her face curious.

"I'm sorry about Saturday. I could take you to the movies tonight, just you and me, to make it up to you."

Ino smiled gently, but her expression turned almost bitter instantly. "I'm sorry, pineapple-head, but there's someone else I have to see."

"Huh?" was all Shikamaru said before Ino had escaped to the indoors.

Once again, Shikamaru decided that women made absolutely no sense at all.
- - - - - - - - -

Naruto walked through the partition quietly, careful not to make too much noise and attract attention. The nurse was at the office, on the telephone.

"Psst, Sasuke," he whispered, trying to get the allegedly sleeping boy's attention.

"Sasuke!" he called, jabbing the other boy in the arm roughly.

"What?" Sasuke growled, opening an eye.

"Just making sure you're not dead yet. By the way, school's been out for over an hour. Do you wanna go home yet?"

"Yes," Sasuke groaned, sitting up, slowly. "Stupid blanket," he muttered, peeling the thing away from him. "It's giving me a rash."

He showed Naruto his forearms, which were indeed, red with irritation.

"Well, then. Let's get out of here. The nurse is gone."

With Naruto's help, Sasuke managed to stand up. Once he caught his balance, however, he seemed to be fine. Well, almost. He was still a little shaky, and a little cold.

"What did the nurse say anyway?" Naruto asked, as soon as they were safely outside.

Sasuke didn't reply.

Naruto felt his heart flutter nervously, though he didn't know why, exactly. It had to be bad, especially if Sasuke wouldn't tell him, or even hint at it.

"It's a relapse," he said finally. He didn't look at Naruto.

The blond blinked in confusion. "Relapse? Relapse of what?"

Sasuke shook his head. "Never mind, Naruto. It doesn't matter anyway."

Naruto, however, felt that it did matter, and he felt that it mattered quite a bit. He bit his tongue and didn't say anything, trying to put trust in the idea that Sasuke would tell him when he was ready to tell him.

- - - - - - - - -

The front door swung open and Naruto and Sasuke stood in the doorframe and just stared for a moment or two.
Sasuke sighed.

Itachi and Orochimaru were both sitting on the couch, pointedly not talking to each other. They were sitting as far apart from each other as they could.

"Let me guess. . .you two had another fight," Sasuke said, sarcasm and exasperation dripping from his words.

Neither replied.

Sasuke sighed and turned his attention to other matters. "Come on Naruto. I still feel like crap."

With that statement, he hobbled upstairs, Naruto following him closely.

The downstairs was silent.

- - - - - - -