Dream Lover
The day wore on… very, very slowly. Sasuke and Naruto continued to get many stares and whispers wherever they passed. Sasuke pleaded, almost got to the point where he was going to get on his knees and kiss Naruto's feet, to make him take off the tacky collar, but Naruto wouldn't budge. It was obvious he was enjoying the attention.
Finally, the sun had set and Naruto decided it was time to go home. He dragged Sasuke across the village and back to his dumpy house, tugging roughly on the collar every now and then, nearly choking the other boy. Sasuke gasped for breath as Naruto jumped up the porch steps and took out a small silver key from his pocket.
"N-Naruto" Sasuke gasped. "Please let me go the hell home."
Naruto glanced at Sasuke and laughed quietly. "Haha, no way! If I let you go home, you'll probably never come back!"
Sasuke bit his lower lips as Naruto swung the door open. "I hafta…um…get some…stuff."
Naruto raised his brow. "Stuff?"
Sasuke nodded. "Ye-yeah. Because, you know…now we're going to be living together I need to get some…stuff to move in."
Sasuke silently pleaded Naruto to take his lame excuse for an excuse. Naruto scratched his chin and broke out into a grin.
"Okay! I'll let you go, now that you've finally accepted that we ARE going to get married."
He unbuckled the collar from Sasuke's neck. Sasuke let out a sigh of relief and winced as he rubbed his raw neck; Naruto pulled pretty dang hard on that collar. What, ya think you can treat humans like dogs, you sick bastard?
Naruto tapped his nose and stepped inside his house. "Be home soon or you don't want to know what I'll do to you."
With one last fox-like grin, he slammed the door shut. Sasuke gritted his teeth and clenched his fists into balls.
"What, threatening me, dobe?" He seethed at the door. "You are such an idiot!"
He rubbed his neck once again and jumped off the porch steps, knowing already where he was going to go. No, he wasn't going to go back home, and he definitely not going to return to this pigpen Naruto called "a house". No, he was going to go see the only sane person in this jacked up village, the only person who had an I.Q. above that of a stick of butter, the only person who could give him some sound advice…
Shikamaru scoffed. "So you decided to come to me…in the middle of the night…while I'm still in my pajamas?"
Sasuke nodded and shuffled embarrsedely on Shikamaru's front porch steps. So what if it was rude? He had rights as a human, and one of those rights must've been that he could visit anyone at anytime. So fuck off, man.
Shikamaru scratched his hair (which was down and probably looked pretty sexy to a girl, Sasuke thought, but since he wasn't a girl and he was not gay, he wasn't sure) and mumbled his famous catch-phrase under his breath. "How…goddamn…troublesome." He sighed and leaned against the doorframe. "What exactly do you need, Uchiha?"
Sasuke cleared his throat. "I need some advice."
Shikamaru chuckled. "If you wanted advice, you could just write to an advice columnist. Like, what's her name, 'Dear Yukiko?'"
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "I've read that woman's so-called 'advice' before. The only thing she says is to go to a counselor and never write to her again."
Shikamaru crossed his arms. "What's your problem, pretty boy? You're beautiful, all the girls love you, and you're talented. What could possibly be troubling you?"
Sasuke took a deep breath and looked at the cement below his feet, feeling his face heat up. "NarutoaskedmetomarryhimwhenIwasdrunkandIsaidIwouldandnowhewon't leavemethehellalone."
Shikmaru stared at him. "Excuse me?"
Sasuke blew air out of the side of his mouth and explained the situation so that a normal person could actually understand what he was saying. Shikamaru nodded and yawned loudly.
"That's it?"
Sasuke frowned. "What do you mean 'that's it'? This is a pretty big deal here!"
Shikamaru waved his hand carelessly. "Uchiha, I'm gonna tell you something that you really oughta hear. All the girls think you're gay anyway, Ino told me herself. So why don't you just marry him? He'll stop whining and no one will make fun of you because you have the reputation of only liking guys."
Sasuke felt his face get hot and anger boiled inside him. "Who said I was gay? I'm NOT gay! I'm attracted to…"
He stopped in the middle of his sentence. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't really attracted to anyone, guy nor girl. So what did that make him? Sexless? Prude?
Shikamaru shook his head. "Look, if you can't take that piece of advice, I'll give you this one."
"I'll do anything but marry Naruto," Sasuke mumbled.
Shikamaru continued. "Leave the village."
Sasuke's brows furrowed. "What?"
"Just leave the village, say, for two or three weeks. You know Naruto, he'll probably forget about the whole marriage thing by then."
Sasuke bit his lip. "But where will I go?"
Shikamaru stuck his tongue in his cheek, thinking. "Well…I do have a cousin in the Village of Stone who you could stay with for a while. I'll tell him that you'll be dropping by."
Sasuke considered the proposal. Leaving the village was tempting, and he would be getting away from Naruto. He'd come back in a little less than a month and everything would be back to normal. Naruto would start being his rival again and Sakura and Ino would start up the Uchiha Sasuke fan club. Yeah, that sounded nice.
Sasuke finally nodded and turned away from Shikamaru. "Thanks, Nara. I owe you one." He grinned. "You know, you should become an advice columnist sometime."
He jumped off the porch step and ran into the night. Shikamaru shook his head and shut the door behind him. He looked at the ceiling and smiled to himself.
"You know, I would make a pretty damn good advice columnist. I'd just tell everyone to run away."
Right when Sasuke made it back to his house, he ran up to his room and pulled out his kunai and shuriken and stuffed them hastily into the holster on his leg. He gathered a random bunch of clothes and stuffed them into a beat-up athletic bag and rushed back down the stairs. He locked the door quickly and gave his house one last look.
'Well…it's gonna be a while before I see this place again.'
Sasuke sighed, turned around, and ran to the edge of the forest where one wall surrounding the village stood. He ran up a nearby pine tree and stealthily jumped onto the wall. He looked up at the now dark blue, star-ridden sky.
"See you in a while, Konoha."
And he jumped off the wall and onto the dirt road leading out of the village.
In a tree approximately twenty feet away, Uzumaki Naruto was giggling to himself as he watched the lone figure on the other side of the wall disappear along the dirt road.
"Playing hard to get, huh, Sasuke-teme?" He whispered quietly. "Well, I'll follow you wherever you go."
