(Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews! Please remember, if you're reading, review! Warnings and disclaimers apply to all chapters. Special thanks to Ruby Love, who originally beta'ed this chapter.)

And the Beat Goes On
Chapter 37: Side Dish

School was a harrowing ordeal from that point on. Sasuke made a point of not speaking to Naruto, and Naruto ignored Sasuke. One of their teachers had made the mistake of putting them in the same group. Nothing had been accomplished in that group, except a lot of hostile silence, and heated glaring. The teacher had quickly separated them.

Naruto kept telling himself that he didn't care what the bastard did. Sasuke could jump off a cliff, Sasuke could go bungee-jumping without the cord, Sasuke could go whore himself out to random, sleazy homosexual and bisexual men, and Naruto would not give a damn or bat an eye.

Except that he would. He knew it, and it drove him crazy. It distracted him, because he was frustrated and annoyed with the fact that he would care what Sasuke did, no matter what happened.

As a result of his distraction, his grades had been slipping, not that it really was anything new. His grades had been crappy before. Being with Sasuke had some perks, he had to admit, such as being allowed to copy the other teen's homework. Right now, he was sitting in the library, after having been kicked out of class for causing disruptions. He had returned to his old ways in less than a split second and now, every time a teacher turned around, he was making faces, cracking jokes, throwing paper aeroplanes and other objects around the room. Surprisingly, nobody paid any heed to anything he did, except the teacher, who merely chucked him out of the room and gave him detentions. Somehow, he'd gone back to being the invisible boy again.

He growled and glared at his messy handwriting. It was illegible, for the most part, and the words he could read were disjointed, and made no sense to him. It was the storm of his emotions, recreated on paper, with words, and it described perfectly, in a visual way, how he felt inside. The words just couldn't dig deep enough to unearth him.

He was so frustrated, and fed up with everything. He had made progress in the social world. He had elevated himself to a point where he no longer needed to pull pranks to get the attention he'd desperately wanted. At least, that was what he'd liked to think he'd done in the time he'd been with Sasuke. Apparently, it hadn't happened, and Sasuke was merely a pedestal for him to stand on. When his pedestal was removed, he came crashing back to the ground. It bruised him.

Iruka thought he was just upset about the results of the car accident. In part, that was some of his problem. There had been little closure, little time to say goodbye, and it had happened so suddenly that it left him dumbfounded and awestruck. It made his mind numb and baffled his heart into skipping beats at random intervals. He had even started to philosophize about things. Was he really living, or was he dead now, as he sat there, and he was waiting to start living? Were Kakashi and Konohamaru now living, and not dead? It was almost a comforting thought, but it wasn't the concepts of life and death that bothered him. It was the separation. He would no longer speak to Kakashi or Konohamaru. He would no longer see them, hear them, and so on and so forth. His senses were rendered useless against the dead and all he had left were memories.

Separation plagued him in his reality as well. Iruka had been closed off and almost unreachable for the past two weeks. Somehow, somewhere, he had lost a piece of his sanity, the piece of his heart he had given Kakashi for safe keeping, and he immersed himself in work the instant he was out of the hospital, fighting desperately to keep himself grounded in reality. He'd still been black and blue when he came back to work.

When Iruka wasn't working, he was distant and reserved. He stared off into space for long periods of time, and Naruto was left alone in the realm of the living. There were walls between them now, where once, there had been none. There were walls of sorrow and fear to break them apart and keep them locked inside their own temples. Naruto wondered if Iruka was planning to follow Kakashi to the grave. Though it seemed selfish of the brunet to do, Naruto felt that he had all but forgotten the blond teenager that was still reliant on him, and looking to him for support.

Naruto's separation didn't stop there. He was separated from Sasuke now, though by choice, and with it, he had ostracized himself again from society. He was the outsider again. He was the child with no friends, the child he'd been all the way through grade school. He was the invisible boy again, the boy no one saw, and the boy no one wanted to see. He wished, some days, that he really was invisible, so that Iruka couldn't catch him skipping class. He would wander then, if no one could see him, through the crowds downtown at lunch hour and he would understand the wind at last. The wind was invisible and lonely, but it was a force to be reckoned with. Was that what Sasuke had aspired to become?

He had thought people had started to recognize him for who he was: not a bad person. He was a likeable person even. They had only recognized him because, somehow or other, Uchiha had taken an interest in him. Anything that was worth Sasuke's time must be something worthy of appraisal. Sasuke had no interest in him any more.

Faintly, the bell rang outside of him, but to him, it was just another buzzing noise inside the whirring and screaming of his inner self. It was like the final alarm, signalling a fire, or an air raid, that was about to turn him into ashes. He wondered how ashes felt, being so small and black, yet the bearers of so much evil, and so many memories. He wondered if ashes remembered that once upon a time, they had been something. He wondered if they cried because they had been something, and now, they were nothing, being whisked away on the wind.

He got up, slammed his book shut and stowed it away in his backpack. He slung his pack on his back and he fled the library. The weather had turned nice in the days and weeks since he'd become separated, and he liked to run home as fast as he could, so he could sit by the pond and watch the fish. His latest obsession was seeing how many times he could hit Sasuke the koi fish with a rock. He felt bad about trying to hit the fish - it had done nothing to him - but it was a painful reminder of everything that was Sasuke. It reminded him of all Sasuke's habitual behaviours, and it had been given to him by Sasuke.

His plans of fish-hunting were quickly spoiled, however, when he was apprehended in the hallway by the person he dreaded most. Sasuke stood in front of him, foreboding and dark, blocking Naruto's path. The blond fumed. Why did Sasuke have to be such a jerk?

"Here," the other teen said, bluntly, quickly, and it was the only thing he said.

He walked by Naruto, tossing something into the air as he went. Naruto scrambled to catch it, and when he opened his hand, he saw it was the ring he had bought Sasuke for Valentine's. He looked up from it and watched the other teen go down the hall until he couldn't see him any longer. Then, he turned and ran most of the way home.

He ditched his backpack and his shoes in the foyer, and he padded through the house. No one was home yet. The house was silent and empty. He shuddered. He ran outside, into the backyard. The screen door on the back of the house slammed shut angrily.

It had been a very lovely spring day. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the wind wasn't very cool. The snow was gone, and the grass and the oak tree in the backyard were beginning to turn green again. The flowers Iruka had planted by the house last fall had started to come up and bloom. They were all sorts of vibrant shades.

The fish were swimming gaily about in the pond, chasing each other all about. Their fins looked like ribbons, and 'round and 'round they went, in dizzy circles. Naruto thought he could hear them laughing, although fish were too stupid to laugh. He glared at them.

He noticed that he was still holding the ring in his hand, his fingers curled tightly against his palm, holding it there. He didn't want to let go of it. He had gone to great lengths to obtain that ring. He had stolen nearly three hundred dollars from Iruka. First, he had taken the change in the spare change pot, and then, he had scrounged to find the allowance that Iruka had given Konohamaru. Ironically enough, Konohamaru had no need of it now.

Then, he had emptied the brunet's wallet of cash, and then, proceeded to steal the man's credit card. He knew he was going to be in a lot of trouble when Iruka discovered this, but the brunet teacher had been so distracted lately that he hadn't caught on.

Naruto knew he should come clean and give the ring to Iruka so that he could return it to the store and get a refund. Part of him wanted to do that. He wanted to cry and say he was sorry and be told that all was forgiven. But part of him was so angry at Sasuke that he simply couldn't bring himself to do that. He knew he shouldn't let his emotions get the better of him, and he knew he shouldn't let Sasuke indirectly influence how much trouble he was going to be in, but damnit! He had to let go.
He threw the ring into the pond, watching it send up a small fountain of water, and then, he watched as the fish scattered from it, scared by the new, strange object. He watched it sink slowly down to the bottom, and stay there. The fish crowded around it, inspecting it, timidly at first, and then, accepting it as part of their environment, and not dangerous. They flitted around it gleefully.

"Idiot fish," Naruto muttered angrily, glaring at them and their joyous play.

It was then that he noticed something small and black lurking in the grasses of the pond. He raised an eyebrow. "What the heck?" he muttered, and wandered off to find a stick.

He returned a moment later, and started poking at the grasses with his newly acquired instrument. There were more little black things, and they darted when he poked at the grasses. He kept poking, and the little black things kept darting. It took him a moment or two to realize that the black things were fish!

"Holy crap!" he yelled, and stumbled back from the pond.

There were baby fish in the pond! That meant that the fish had gone and. . . "Ew," he muttered. "No wonder they're so happy."

He sighed and decided that he would have to mention the baby fish to Iruka. He trudged back inside. The screen door slammed shut behind him. "Iruka!" he called.

There was no answer. He grumbled and trudged into the kitchen. He glanced at the clock as he passed by, noting that the teacher should have been home more than half an hour ago. He checked the foyer. Iruka's shoes were there, and the car was parked in the driveway. The brunet was home.

"Iruka!" he yelled again, louder this time.

There was a muffled reply from the upstairs. Naruto grumbled and stomped upstairs. "Iruka! Iruka, where are you?" he called to the empty upstairs hallway.

"In here," the brunet replied, and opened the door to his bedroom. He looked grumpy.

"We have baby fish," he told his guardian.

Iruka raised an eyebrow. "Baby fish?" he asked.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah. Out in the pond."

Iruka frowned, then sighed. "Go fill the aquarium up with water Naruto. Catch as many of the baby fish as you can."
"Why?" Naruto asked, clueless as ever.

Iruka paused, holding open the door to his room. "The adults will eat them if we leave them there."

"They're cannibalistic!"

Iruka shut the door, and said through it, "Please go fill up the aquarium, Naruto."

The blond sighed and trudged away. He went into the spare bedroom, where they kept the tank. He felt bad about being in there, because the room had belonged to Konohamaru. It was strange that the fish had bred this year. Normally, they didn't. Konohamaru had seemed to have an affinity for the fish, and Naruto wondered if it wasn't his doing, from beyond, that had caused the fish to act this way.

Or maybe it was just the fact that they'd never actually had a female fish in the pond before. Maybe the fish had spawned before, and just eaten all the baby fish before they could save them. He sighed, and shuddered, the room feeling colder than the rest of the house. "Konohamaru," he murmured, but there was no reply.

He shook of his foreboding and sadness, and he filled the tank up quickly. Then, he went downstairs to the kitchen and got a big plastic container. He filled it with water and he carried it outside to the pond.

He spent the better part of an hour trying to catch the damn baby fish. They were fast, they were hard to see, and the stupid adult fish kept getting in the way. At last, he gave the rest of the baby fish up for dead. If they wanted to be stubborn like that, they could die, for all he cared. In his opinion, it would be their own damn fault. They had the choice to join their brothers and sisters in his net and then, in the safety of the tank inside.

Once the fish were all happily inside the tank (well, maybe not so happily), Naruto counted them. He had saved eight baby fish from certain death. They swam around, and one of them stopped and looked at him. "Stupid fish," he muttered, tapping the glass and scaring it away.

Iruka walked into the room, drying his hair with a towel. He'd obviously just had a shower. "Are those the baby fish?" he asked, peering into the tank.

Naruto nodded. The fish kept swimming. They stood there for a moment, in the spare bedroom, watching the baby fish swim about. Iruka clapped Naruto on the back. "Let's go have dinner," he said quietly, and left the room.

Naruto couldn't say he blamed Iruka for wanting to leave the room. After all, it was just a spare room again, after it had been inhabited. The blond watched the fish swim about for a moment or two longer, before turning about and leaving.
He went downstairs, and into the kitchen. Iruka had some pots and pans out and was whipping up one of his culinary miracles - something he hadn't done for months now. Naruto suspected it was because Kakashi had been such a fan of his cooking. Somehow, the teacher hadn't felt it was right to make a meal without Kakashi there to appreciate it.

Now, however, he was showing Naruto that the time was right to move on. It was time to move on, and mend broken fences, and break down fences that needed to be taken down altogether. It was a time to build new fences too, and just, generally, do the yard work they'd neglected for such a period of time.

Naruto sat down at the kitchen table, grinning dumbly to himself, as he began to think of ways to do his yard work. An evil idea began to take root and grow in his mind. His grin got a little larger. Iruka was giving him a strange look. It was one that said, "I don't know what you're up to, but stop grinning like that! You're scaring me."

Naruto paid him no heed. He kept grinning. In a second, he'd decided what he was going to do. He bounded across the kitchen, and picked the phone up off its cradle. He dialled a number he hadn't dialled in months.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Sasuke hadn't been really pleased with what his break-up with Naruto had caused in the aftermath. Somehow, his fan club had unearthed the news and decided that it wasn't too late to 'redeem' him from a path of 'sexual immorality'. Apparently, they were still so hung up on him that they thought they could fix his sexual orientation. . . .Idiots.

How could they, screaming, hormonal, obsessive girls, hope to understand him? They somehow seemed to think he was looking for a trophy wife, a girl he could marry, settle down with, and have a family. They would live in a little house, with a white picket fence, and she would stay home and clean house, while baking cookies, raising children and doing laundry. He would go out and work, and come home and be a loving husband.

Che. . .they were all dreamers and they annoyed him to no end. Why did they seem to think he wanted someone to walk all over? He wanted someone who would fight him. He wanted someone to yell at him, disobey him and question him.

Actually, the only person he wanted was Naruto. But something dictated that he couldn't have Naruto. It wasn't an external force, or anything stupid like that. It wasn't family expectations, or societal expectations or peer pressure. It was an internal force. Something inside him said, "You can't have Naruto."

He didn't know why, but he just thought to himself, "You can't have Naruto." It had become truth to him. He couldn't have Naruto, and he wouldn't let himself have Naruto, for no reason at all.
He made no sense sometimes, not even to himself.

"Sasuke! Telephone!" Orochimaru yelled at him from the ground floor.

The dark-haired teen sighed. He wasn't in a particularly good mood that day. He'd finally confronted Naruto, and his fears about confronting Naruto. He'd been planning on doing some explaining or something of that sort, with copious amounts of talking, just to prove that he could talk to Naruto and not beg the blond to take him back.

He'd gave up at the last second and backed out of his mental plan to prove that he was more mature and more independent that Naruto was. He'd only said one word in passing. He'd thrown the ring instead of depositing it directly into Naruto's hand. He'd walked away very quickly after that. He'd realized that he hadn't quite cut the strings that he wanted to cut. Instead, he'd merely frayed them with dull scissors. Now, he had to let go.

If the person on the telephone was one of his stalkers, he was going to kill something. He swore it on his surname. He stomped downstairs, a little thundercloud of anger and despair.

Orochimaru smiled sweetly and handed him the phone. Sasuke decided that he'd kill Orochimaru. He didn't care if Itachi decided to mangle him for it afterwards.

"Hello?" he barked into the phone, deciding to be blunt, rude and downright wrathful.

"Naruto and Sasuke had babies!" a cheerful, distinctly male voice chirped in his ear.

Sasuke's hand slipped off the table he was leaning on and he crashed to the floor. "What!" he shrieked, just barely registering that he was falling.

Naruto was cracking up on the other end of the phone and all that Sasuke could hear was his hysterical laughter. It sounded like nothing more than static. Sasuke's eye twitched. Naruto's laughing subsided just slightly.

"The fish, you moron," Naruto said, chuckling.

Sasuke's eye twitched some more. "You called me, to tell me that your fish had babies?" he growled, in an increasingly agitated tone.

"Yes," Naruto replied.

"Don't ever call me again!" Sasuke roared, then hung up the phone with a bang.

He stared at the phone for a moment or two, before he ran up the stairs at breakneck speed, nearly running over his brother in the process. Itachi barely lifted an eyebrow. "What the hell?" he said in a dead monotone.
Orochimaru shrugged. "It was his ex on the phone," the golden-eyed teen said.

Itachi's eyebrow went just a smidgen higher. "They broke up?" he asked, his voice a monotone that was almost incredulous.

"Yes," Orochimaru said, his face going blank for a second. "While you were off in la-la-land with your friendly neighbourhood narcotics, Sasuke and Naruto broke up. For no particular reason."

"Oh," Itachi said.

Orochimaru patted the younger teen's shoulder. "You see, Itachi my dear, drugs are very bad things. You miss important events, that you can gossip about with other people -"

"I hate gossip," Itachi returned with a mock-glare.

Orochimaru continued, oblivious. "And you can use those events to blackmail people with at later, undetermined dates."

"I don't use blackmail," Itachi said. "I'm intimidating enough without it."

Orochimaru smiled sweetly and patted the younger teen on the back. "Of course you are, sweetie."

"Don't call me that."

"Yessir," Orochimaru said smartly, saluting.

Itachi shook his head and continued downstairs, which was where he'd been going when his brother had apprehended him. Orochimaru trailed him downstairs. "By the way," he said, "where the hell are you going?"

"To the mailbox," Itachi replied, walking into the entry and putting on his shoes.

Orochimaru followed his lead. "Are you expecting a package?" he asked.

"Yes," Itachi replied.

He walked outside into the early evening. Orochimaru followed him, like a lost puppy. Itachi's eyebrow twitched, but he didn't say anything. He really hated it when Orochimaru acted like he was a hopeless stalker. He liked Orochimaru because he was strong willed and generally didn't back down from a fight. Orochimaru could be annoying, but he was also a quirky person, and that intrigued Itachi. It was like a slap in the face and hearing someone say, "You don't have to be perfect, you know."
"I hope you're not receiving mail-order drugs," Orochimaru quipped now.

"No," Itachi replied dully. "I'm waiting to see if I got anything from the universities I applied to."

A light bulb appeared to be turned on inside Orochimaru's head. "Ah, right! No doubt you got in! Who wouldn't want a genius like you at their school?" he practically gushed, reminding Itachi of a high school girl.

The older teen clasped his hands together, and wriggled his eyebrows, his face gaining a rather devious expression as he did so. Itachi sighed. Thankfully, Orochimaru knew enough to kill the high school girl appearance quickly.

He caught up with Itachi, who had kept moving while he'd paused. "So, you applied for what again?"

"Psychology."

"Ah, ah! That's right. Only psychotic people make good psychiatrists. Like. . .what's his face. Freud! He was King of the Crazy Mofos, you know!"

"I'm sure he was," Itachi replied calmly, stopping in front of the mailbox.

He inserted the key in the slot, and opened the little box up, retrieving the contents. Orochimaru started whistling, and rocking on his heels. He was looking skywards. Itachi shut the mailbox and locked it again. "Okay," he said, rounding on his boyfriend. "What is it?"

Orochimaru pretended to look innocent. However, whistling and rocking back and forth on his heels was something he did only when he had something important to tell somebody. "What?" he asked, blinking and pointing at himself. "Me?"

Itachi glared. "Don't play dumb. Tell me what you did."

Orochimaru whistled a couple more notes, before quickly saying, "I got my license."

Itachi stared blankly, then coughed discreetly. "They're going to let you drive?" he asked, giving Orochimaru the most incredulous look.

The older teen grinned deviously. "I was wondering if you'd like to get away from here this weekend."

Itachi shrugged. "With what mode of transportation?" he asked, flipping through his mail.

"My newly acquired motorcycle," Orochimaru replied.
Itachi raised a sceptical eyebrow, which was just barely visible over the top of the envelope he was reading. "Oh, really? And how did you acquire said motorcycle?"

"Auto. The teacher was looking for things we could bring in to fix up. A couple of people had already brought in cars - real junkers - and so I brought that in and we fixed it up."

He wrapped an arm about Itachi's shoulder suddenly, drawing the smaller boy to him. "It runs so smoothly! We'll ride along, under the open sky, with the wind in our hair-"

"I see why you failed English," Itachi said sardonically, removing himself from his boyfriend's grasp.

He turned about and started walking back to the house. The night time air was still just a little too chilly for him. It wasn't that he couldn't stand the cold. He could have stood there all night if he had to. It was that he didn't like the cold. There was nothing holding him there, so he slunk back into the house, where it was warmer.

Orochimaru followed him, continuing his puppy act. "What do you think, my darling weasel?"

"Don't call me that," Itachi called back.

The older teen ran up beside him. "Come on, it'll be fun! Just you and me, on the road. We could go where ever we wanted to! Suna-"

"Sand. Yuck."

"Kiri?"

"Rain makes my hair frizz."

"Uh," Orochimaru said, thinking about other places they could travel to. "Iwa?"

"What's interesting about rocks?"

"Nothing really," he mused, frowning. "Come on! We'll just go somewhere, okay?"

"Whatever," Itachi muttered.

"That's the closest thing to a yes I'm going to get, isn't it?"

"Probably."

Orochimaru grinned. "Okay. So Kiri it is."
The door slammed shut in his face.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Sakura glared at Ino. Ino glared at Sakura. Nothing had been resolved between the two, but somehow, they had fallen into their old steps. They were rivals again. They had started as best friends, and somehow they had become rivals for Sasuke. Then, they had been lovers. Now, they were rivals again.

Sasuke was single again, and they had both rejoined the leagues of his followers with some sort of possessive fever. They were trying their very best to outdo the other, to show the other girl up. The depth of their fight was so dramatic that they scared even the other obsessive stalkers. They ignored the horrified stares they earned as they charged up and down the school halls, ripping notes from their own lockers from the other girl, and tearing banners and flowers and other such affections from Sasuke's locker.

In reality, they weren't actually trying to win Sasuke any longer. It was a strange sort of truth, neither girl was attracted to the Uchiha boy any longer. They might have made a big show about loving him, and a big fuss over him when he was around, but he was a case of out of sight, out of mind for both of them.

They were actually fighting over Temari. Sakura wasn't fighting by choice, but by dogmatic belief. If Temari had been god, then Sakura would have been some sort of enlightened, chosen being. Temari had chosen Sakura. There had to be some sort of symbolic meaning to that.

Ino, on the other hand, had been chosen first. She had been discarded, however, for Sakura, and now, she was jealous. She had never thought the day would come when she was jealous of Sakura. Then again, the girl did have a knack for taking away what she wanted.

They hid the real meaning of their fight, and they had agreed, with some unspoken words, that they would not bring up Temari or the fact that she was the real reason they were fighting. They would pretend that it was just like the old days, when they had fought tooth and claw over Sasuke.

These weren't the old days, though. They were really fighting now, and no longer the best-friends-yet-rivals they had been when they'd first entered high school. They were now bitter enemies. This would be a fight to the death.

Neither of them had seen hide nor hair of Temari for months. They had both tried showing up at her apartment at different, random intervals of the day, on different days. Occasionally, they met each other, but neither of them ever saw Temari. They had tried paging her, e-mailing her and phoning her, but she was never home and she never returned messages.

Now, here she was, in all her glory. She had sunglasses on her face, and she was wearing a light cotton dress. Someone was walking with her. Ino and Sakura abruptly stopped their arguing over who loved Sasuke more, to look at the blonde woman who had invaded their school.

She didn't even look at them when she walked by. Instead, she turned her head pointedly to the side, talking to the red-headed boy beside her. Sakura recognized him as Gaara, and she blinked in shock. Just like that, Temari was gone again. They stood there, and watched her go, standing beside each other, both suffering some form of heartbreak. They glanced at each other and turned aside with an angry huff. There was no way either girl would be the first to break. Sakura would not yield to Ino, and Ino would not yield to Sakura.

Shikamaru thought their petty rivalry was incredibly troublesome and he left them there, and headed outside. Choji followed him, snacking on some chips, and ranting about how Shikamaru had promised to take him to the Korean All-You-Can-Eat buffet later that week. The lazy boy had waved his hand, dismissing the topic and acknowledging it all at once.

He stood outside for a little while, with Choji, who apparently had nothing better to do. Shikamaru did have places to go, but it was terribly troublesome to lie to Choji. The brunet boy was his best friend, and sooner or later, he would find out. At last, Choji realized he was late for his music lessons, and scurried off in the direction of home, still munching on his chips. Shikamaru sighed, and wondered if Choji had ever been seen without junk food in his hand. He doubted it. He was beginning to believe the Akimichi boy had been born with a bag of potato chips in hand.

Shikamaru shook his head. It was troublesome to think about stupid things like that. He had other things to attend to, which were equally as irritating. This particular thing he had to attend to was like the shougi lessons he'd taken when he was younger. While he enjoyed playing shougi, he found it incredibly troublesome to drag himself to the lessons, to play against the teacher, and to listen to the teacher, and then, to play against amateurs. Amateurs who had no idea what they were doing were terribly troublesome.

He walked for a little bit, and he turned onto one of the residential streets that weren't far from the school. He was late, and he knew it. He sighed and walked toward the other boy. This was going to be troublesome.

"You're late," Hyuuga Neji pointed out.

"Yes," Shikamaru said flatly. "Choji is very troublesome. And so is being on time."

Neji raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really?" he asked, managing to sound not at all interested in Shikamaru's excuses.

Shikamaru would have smirked. But that was something only geniuses who had the time to think they were good did. It was too much work, keeping up an appearance like Neji or Sasuke. So, his expression stayed dead and bored.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Naruto was surprised to find Sasuke standing outside his door at quarter to twelve that night. The Uchiha boy was standing there, in a t-shirt and shorts, rubbing his arms to fend off the chilly night.

They stared at each other. After nearly two months of not talking, it was a little awkward to try and find something to say to each other. So, they simply stared at each other, at a complete loss for what to say. They studied each other, noticing how much more mature the other looked, and how tired he looked.

The words came in a sudden flood, and they were both speaking at once, with too much to say. "I'm sorry," they both said at once, and they thought that was a little stupid and cliched.

"Hi," Naruto said, finally, shaking himself from his stupor. "Would you like to come it?"

"Hi," Sasuke returned. "Sure."

Naruto stepped aside and Sasuke stepped, almost timidly, into the house. Naruto shut the door behind him. He followed the other teen into the kitchen. "How have you been?" he asked, stupidly.

Sasuke shrugged, noncommittal. "How have you been?" he asked.

Naruto made a face that indicated he hadn't been well, but he hadn't been terrible either. They sat down at the table together, and they were silent. Each one sorted out his own thoughts. "So," Naruto said at last, drumming his fingers on the table.

Sasuke didn't say anything much. He stared at the worn wood of the table. Naruto was starting to get annoyed with him. Sasuke didn't expect him to start the conversation, did he? If he thought Naruto was going to do any of the talking while he listened, he was going to get a rather nasty surprise.

Naruto knew when to shut up. He could hold his tongue when he really tried, when he really wanted to and now was one of those times. The silence drew out, growing longer, and longer, and longer. It was like drawing a line on a piece of paper that just kept unfolding.

Sasuke kept glancing up at him, as if he was nervous about something. He stood up, slowly, muttering to Naruto, "Can we go outside?"

The blond shrugged, and followed him, maintaining his silence all the way. They went outside and stood on the tarmac of the driveway. Naruto tapped his foot now, instead of his fingers. Sasuke fumbled with something in his pockets, and then, turned away from Naruto a bit, lighting a cigarette and taking a long, deep drag of it. Naruto raised an eyebrow. This must have been a recent development.
Sasuke turned back to face him, flicking ashes from the end of the cigarette. "You're making me uncomfortable," he said at last, giving Naruto a rather half-hearted glare.

Naruto's silence shattered into a million pieces. "I'm making you uncomfortable!" he screeched.

Sasuke looked at the ground. "I'm trying to gather my thoughts. It's very difficult to do, especially with a dunce like you looking at me like that."

Naruto huffed and turned about. "There! I'm not looking at you! Now, go sort yourself out somewhere that isn't my driveway, you prick!"

Sasuke sighed. "Don't piss me off," he hissed.

"Maybe you should take your own advice," Naruto shot back, staying turned about and resisting the urge to turn around and tackle the other boy.

The Uchiha boy rolled his eyes, though Naruto couldn't see him. "Look," he said, drawing on his smoke again, "I came here to. . .talk to you, but you're acting like a three year old. We'll talk when you mature a bit."

He turned around and started to walk away. He was yanked backwards so viciously that he nearly fell down. He whipped around and was met with Naruto's snarling face. The blond looked like some sort of explosion had just gone off.

"You had better start talking, Uchiha," he snarled.

"Is that a threat?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto said nothing. He waited for Sasuke to talk. The dark-haired boy sighed, and tried to wiggle his fingers. Naruto had a rather bone-crushing grip on his wrist. "Fine," he grumbled.

He opened his mouth to speak, but he was yanked forward, against the shorter boy, who crushed their mouths together, in a very aggressive way. Sasuke swore he heard his nose crack under the pressure of their faces meeting.

They pulled apart, and Sasuke used his free hand to clutch at his nose, which was dripping blood. "What the hell?" he said, in a calm voice.

He wasn't all too surprised, really. He didn't know why he wasn't. It just had seemed. . .like something Naruto would do. It had seemed natural for Naruto to be clumsy, yet aggressive and angry, and it had seemed natural for Naruto to kiss him. It didn't really matter why it was natural.

Naruto muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Fucking pretty bastard," and offered Sasuke a rather crumpled tissue he'd found in his pocket. The older teen accepted, without really thinking about it. They sat down on the front step together.

Naruto was holding his head in his hands. "Why did you come here?" he asked, keeping his expression hidden from Sasuke.

The Uchiha teen shrugged. "I. . .think I wanted to. . .apologize," he muttered, listening to how funny his voice sounded. He wondered if his nose was swollen, or broken. It was bleeding quite a bit.

Naruto said nothing, leaving Sasuke room to pour his thoughts out to the empty sky. He moved the tissue, and resettled it on his nose. "I. . .was a jackass," he muttered.

"You always are," Naruto offered, introspectively.

Sasuke glared. "I really. . .went off the deep end. And I shouldn't have."

Naruto shrugged. "I was being an ass too," he admitted.

He still didn't look at Sasuke. The dark-haired Uchiha settled his gaze on the ground, watching the blood drip out of his nose, miss the tissue and splatter across the pale cement. They sat there, in silence, though it was a far more comfortable silence than the one they'd shared in the kitchen.

"I'm forgiven?" Sasuke asked, after a little while.

"No," Naruto replied. Sasuke blinked, but didn't say anything. He looked at the ground again.

"I'm going to be independent," Naruto said at length.

Sasuke looked at him, as if he may have sprouted wings and proclaimed to be an angel. "What do you mean?" he asked, slowly, unsure of the answer and of Naruto's current mental state.

"I mean that I'm not going to piggyback on your popularity to fit in with people. If they can't like me for me, why should they like me for you?"

Sasuke tried to understand the sense behind that, but couldn't quite grasp it. Maybe it was blood loss. Maybe he didn't understand because he had never been the outsider when he had wanted to be. People just seemed to like him, no matter what he did.

"Then it's over for good?" he asked, hating how he sounded small and insecure.

"No," the blond replied, tartly. "On the side. And nobody knows."

"On the side," Sasuke repeated, slowly. "Then what's your main course?"
"Making a nuisance of myself."

"And I'll keep being a prick," Sasuke stated.

"Exactly," the blond exclaimed with some sort of pseudo satisfaction, turning to Sasuke with a huge smile plastered all over his face.

"You know, you're an ass because you're a genius, but that's why I love you," Naruto said, before crushing Sasuke in something that might have passed for a hug between bears.

Somehow, he really didn't mind, though he acted embarrassed, and pushed himself away from Naruto, sulking about how Naruto was trying to kill him. Underneath the act, he was really glad that Naruto was willing to have him back. If he could have, he might have purred like a kitten, but that would have ruined his 'cool exterior' facade.

"You're getting blood all over your shorts," Naruto stated, pointing.

Sasuke glanced down, which put more blood on his shorts. Naruto gave him a hand, and helped him up. "Let's see if we can get that nosebleed stopped. You can crash here, if you want."

"Sure," Sasuke mumbled, holding the blood-soaked tissue to his nose and letting Naruto lead him into the house.

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