Beethoven's Moonlight sonata was playing. Nimble fingers glided across the black and white keys of the piano almost like fluid running across a surface to produce the melodic sounds that permeated the whole room.

Onyx eyes focused on the keys and score sheet in front of him. He needed to get this right, he had to! The tempo of the song started picking up as the musical notes changed from minims and crotchets to semi-quavers and hemi-semi-quavers. The notes were half beats long and Sasuke's fingers moved along with the tempo.

The song reached its apex and the dark haired teen erred by hitting the wrong key. Sasuke scowled at the keys like they were the ones that pressed themselves. He looked up at his father who had been overseeing his piano lessons, as expected the man had a displeased frown on his otherwise stoic face.

"Do it again." The man commanded. "Itachi could play this piece when he was half your age, learn from him."

Sasuke deflated inwardly at his father's words. "Yes father." He spoke and proceeded to start the piece all over again. His fingers hurt from moving them so fast and playing the same piece all over again for more than ten times. One would think that as a child genius, Sasuke would get the piano easily.

That was a lie. He was no genius. Compared to his older brother he was dust. That was why Neji kept beating him in everything. That was why that Nara exceeded him in intelligence. He was just lucky on occasion. Second place. Not the best. Not perfect. Not like Itachi-!

The off tone of the offending key blared loud as Sasuke long pressed it. His hands were trembling but he tried to hide it. Uchihas showed no weakness. Fugaku clicked his tongue and left the room. He was disappointed at Sasuke, as always.

The raven packed his score sheet and went out of the room. There was a classical music competition coming up in Spring that Fugaku wanted Sasuke to enrol for. Itachi had an unbeatable record set in stone, proof of which was the numerous gold trophies, medals, awards and certificates that lined the walls of his room.

Sasuke mostly had silver medals and a fewer number of awards than Itachi. When he was younger, he used to look up to his brother. He still did but something...changed. As Fugaku kept reminding Sasuke of how inferior he was to his perfect brother, something in Sasuke changed.

Envy?

Maybe.

Who was he kidding? Sasuke wasenviousof Itachi. He was the first child, first place, first everything that Sasuke wasn't, yeah. He was envious. His message tone brought him out of his dark thoughts and he checked it.

It was a text from Naruto, the person he was meant to tutor. They had agreed on a routine and exchanged phone numbers and Sasuke had sent his address. Oh right, the dobe was coming over today. Sasuke sighed irritably.

Dobe:Matyrhouse I hope. Ydntu jst pck me up

Sasuke didn't bother wasting braincells trying to decipher the text and went downstairs to meet his blond classmate.

"Sasuke!" Said idiot hollered, his voice carrying around the otherwise silent mansion obnoxiously.

"Don't yell, dobe!" Sasuke reprimanded for fear of somebody finding out about the blond's existence in their house.

"What was that?"

Too late.

Fugaku and Mikoto, aka Sasuke's parents appeared from the stairs and made it down to where the noise came from. His father's eyes zeroed in on Naruto who looked a bit lost. "Who is this?" He asked.

"Uzumaki Naruto, I'm Sasuke's friend." Naruto not so helpfully provided and Sasuke internally groaned in frustration. The look his father gave Naruto was certainly of disapproval.

"I am his student tutor..." Sasuke began but was cut off by Fugaku.

"So you are the boy from the news." Even Naruto, dumb as he was, knew what news exactly Fugaku was talking about. Once again, the murder incident was talking first before Naruto did and he hated it. He was about to speak when Sasuke's sister interrupted gently.

"It has been a long time since I saw you, Naruto." She said kindly. "Your mother and I were best friends."

"Really?!" Just like that, Naruto's sour mood cleared and was replaced with curiosity. Sasuke's scary father walked away after that to brood somewhere (Naruto guessed).

"Of course! Things happened so we didn't see each other again for a long time. Ah, I don't want to interfere with your study time. Run along boys, I'll be up with some snacks later." Mikoto smiled at Naruto. Last time she saw him was when he was two years old. How time flies!

"Thank you, mother." Sasuke appreciated and led Naruto up.

"Thanks, nee-chan." Naruto said his thanks.

"She is my mother, idiot." Sasuke corrected.

"What?!" Naruto stared at a now giggling Mikoto and Sasuke and back at Mikoto. They did resemble each other but still! Naruto supposed he shouldn't be surprised. His own grandma looked like she was in her early forties when she was actually over fifty years old.

Studying went by without a hitch. Okay, author is lying. It went by with BIG hitches. Of course it would! Trying to teach Naruto was like trying to teach a chipmunk how to read the ABCs. The moment Naruto stepped inside Sasuke's room he started touching everything and anything despite the other's orders not to.

After that he proceeded to jump on Sasuke's bed and muse over his game collection. They were dusty from under use which Naruto tsked at. Why bother getting them if you would not play them? Turns out, they were gifts from Sasuke's thirteenth birthday.

After that he went to Sasuke's private bathroom and admired the shower mixer and got himself sprayed with freezing water. Sasuke didn't give him a towel. Needless to say, that was what got Naruto to finally take his seat and actually open his book.

He fell asleep in two minutes.

"That-!" Sasuke bristled upon realising that the idiot was asleep. Oh how he wanted to bash his head into the table with his baseball bat! Sasuke calmed himself down and poked Naruto awake with the bat instead. Yeah, he actually went to carry it. "Oi dobe, wake up."

"Ramenica, no! Don't go!" Naruto jumped awake and blinked at his surroundings. Phew! It was just a dream. Ramen wasn't going extinct. She wasn't going to leave him alone on earth, phew!

"Dobe." Sasuke poked the back of Naruto's head with the bat to remind him of his presence and studying. "Are you done with the exercise I gave you?"

Naruto scowled in disgust at that. "I don't know anything! You're a crappy teacher." He complained and Sasuke actually lifted the bat to whack his head with. The raven calmed though. It wouldn't do if his mum came upstairs and found him dumping Naruto's dead body down the toilet.

"I would explain it to you like I have beentryingto do for a minute now."

Studying with typical blond idiots (no offense to blonds other than Naruto) was a lot more stressful than staying alone in the same room with Sakura, Ino and Karin!

Xxx symphony xxX

Haku was locking the front door of his foster home when he saw a mop of spiky black hair beside the small fence of the house. His guardian was a teacher at KSA and had left earlier to attend a staff meeting so Haku was the only one at home now.

The spiky hair though, he recognised as the guy he played the violin with at the subway some months ago. Haku made his way over to the fence and peeked above it. Sure enough, it was the same guy trying to be as inconspicuous as possible in cow print trousers.

"You do know me." Haku spoke and effectively alerted the older teen of his presence which was bad because he was about to run. The long haired boy had no other option but to swing his violin case. It hit the older teen on the head and stunned him long enough to allow Haku to climb over the short fence and grab him before he could run away again.

"What do you want with me, brat?" The guy asked incredulously.

"I could ask you the same question! This isn't a coincidence! You were stalking me, weren't you? If you haven't noticed through my uniform, I am not a girl." Haku held the guy in a tight grip as he tried to fish out his phone from his pocket.

"I know that!" The other snapped. "And I wasn't stalking you! It was more of an observation from a distance!

Haku froze. "So you do know me!" He repeated accusingly. "Why the hell did you lie at the subway?!" He asked incredulously.

"You have obviously forgotten me so it was better that way." The other guy acquiesced.

"What's your name? Where did you know me from? Was it the orphanage? Who are you to me?" Haku asked as he released the older teen from his grip on his clothes.

"Chill brat. I'm Zabuza and we knew each other from Kiri." The guy, now Zabuza, answered.

"Kiri? So we met at the orphanage?" Haku asked.

"No. Before that. Well I'm not surprised you don't remember since you were still very small when it happened." Zabuza said.

"Still very small..." Haku gasped. "You knew me before I was orphaned! You knew my parents?!" The boy gripped Zabuza by the scruff of his collar in desperation. The other did nothing about it, just let it be. Haku's instincts had been right, this man was the key to finding his family! "That song that we played, what was it?! Who were my parents? Did they abandon me or did they really die?!" He threw questions at Zabuza.

"Your parents didn't abandon you Haku." Was the only thing Zabuza could say.'Idid.'

"So they died?" Haku whispered in something akin to relief. He wasn't unwanted! His parents did love him and didn't abandon him. But this story had plot holes that Haku still needed to fill. So many questions were unanswered. He was about to open his mouth when Zabuza cut in.

"Don't you have to go to school or something?"

Right! School! "There are many things I don't understand, you have to explain things to me. I still have questions." Haku insisted.

"Just go to school kid, I promise to tell you everything later." Zabuza promised.

"You're not going to disappear again, are you?" Haku asked suspiciously.

"No. You can have my phone number if you want." The other one offered. Haku was satisfied with that enough to leave for school. However though, his movements were off and he wasn't focused in class. He wasn't even calling anybody 'chan' today.

"Yen for your thoughts?" Neji settled beside him during lunch. The cafeteria was noisy and not the best place to have a talk but Haku decided to tell Neji what happened anyway.

"He promised to tell me what happened and now I'm...scared. I know my parents didn't abandon me at the orphanage but what if they didn't acknowledge me when they were alive? What if I'm not going to like anything I'll hear?" Haku finally told of his insecurities to his violin partner.

Neji was thoughtful after all he heard. It wasn't anything to go by but he had a few things to say to Haku. "Isn't the whole point of all this to find out who you were before the orphanage? Why dreams of a harsh life on the streets plague you? Why you keep hearing that song?" He asked.

"Well, yeah." Haku answered unsurely.

"Then if this Zabuza guy knows a thing or two about it, don't be afraid to learn the truth about your past. Whether you were a street rat before shouldn't matter because you're here now and you've turned out fine. So I say, don't be afraid of what you'll hear. Whether or not your parents loved and wanted to have you doesn't mean anything, they're dead. You're alive. Okay?"

Haku smiled a bit. "You know Neji-chan, if you drop your 'I am your king, bow before me' character, you'd have more fan girls." The boy teased.

"I do not have such a character." Neji denied and scooped some rice into his mouth.

"Right, and the sky is green. But seriously thanks Neji-chan, I needed to hear that." Haku appreciated.

"Eat before your food gets colder."

"Yes dad." The androgynous looking boy mocked and started eating. He wondered, what would he hear from Zabuza?

Xxx symphony xxX

Haku stood in front of Amaterasu café anxiously. The truth about his background awaited him just behind the glass door at his face and he was naturally anxious. Since he had sworn not to chicken out to Neji, Haku pushed the glass doors to the cafe open and walked in.

The smell of coffee beans and vanilla assaulted his nose the moment he entered and the bell above the door rang. He supposed it wasn't an assault if the mixed smell of coffee and vanilla calmed his nerves.

Haku scanned around for Zabuza's spiky hair or his cow print jeans but didn't find any. He wasn't there yet.

"Welcome to Amaterasu café, what can I get you?" The pretty woman behind the counter asked with a stunning smile.

"Strawberry scones and a medium cup of choco-latte please." Haku ordered and paid for his order when it was ready. "Thank you." He whispered and went to sit at a table for two next to the window. Would Zabuza come? He thought while nibbling on the scone.

Zabuza did come after thirty minutes of frazzled waiting and Haku could not help the relieved sigh that left his mouth. "Glad you took the liberty to eat." The older teen said as he sat. "There was traffic, sorry I'm late."

"It's fine. Do you want to order something? I would like you to start talking as soon as possible." Haku dismissed.

"I'd order something first." Zabuza did just that. "Before I start, tell me what you remember of your life before the orphanage." The teen asked of Haku.

"I remember that song we played but vaguely. It's at the back of my head and I can't get it out unless I hear it like I did at the subway. I also remember living on the streets, in a big cardboard box. Flashes of some faces I don't recognise also comes to me in dreams, and that's all." Haku retold to Zabuza who had a thoughtful look on his face.

"You were five and I, nine when it happened." The other one finally spoke after a stretched out silence.

"What happened?" Haku asked, gripping his cup in anxiety.

"Our father went bankrupt and he left us alone with mother to look for ways to fend for us."

"Wait, 'our'?!" Haku stopped Zabuza from talking at the new information he just got. He and Zabuza were siblings?! "What do you mean by 'our?' "

"I am your brother." Zabuza explained in layman terms. His head was lowered so Haku didn't see his expression. That wasn't the only thing he couldn't see though.

"I can't see the resemblance!"

Zabuza raised his head, showing a scowl on his face. "I've heard that a lot. Mum was from the Land of Snow and you inherited her foreigner features whereas I look like dad." He searched for something in his pocket and seemed to find it. It was his wallet.

Zabuza removed a picture from it and slipped the image down the table for Haku to take. He did with shaky hands and looked at the picture. It was a family picture. A man was carrying what looked like the younger version of the person in front of him and a woman was carrying what looked like a younger version of him beside the man.

Haku drew in a breath. These were his parents, the little flashes of memories he often dreamed about! "W-what happened after?" The boy breathed. His eyes never left the picture clutched so tightly in his grasp.

"Dad died in a gas explosion weeks later." Haku gasped at Zabuza's words. "Because he was owing debts, everything was taken from us including our house. None of our other family members helped us, some family they are, so mum was forced to work so hard for us." The words were left unsaid because Haku already guessed it.

"She died." He whispered.

"From the shock and stress of it all." Zabuza stared into his half drunken coffee. "The both of us lived on the streets after that. I didn't want the government to take us to live with the so called family that didn't even help us and mum, so I ran along with you. I caused us to live as street rats because I felt it was better than being maltreated. Then one day you fell so ill that I didn't know what to do."

"Haku?" Zabuza called his brother's name once again. The boy didn't answer. His skin was red with fever that the ten year old could feel the heat of from where he was. Haku suddenly clenched his stomach and curled into himself in agony. "Haku?!"

"Hurts!" The boy rasped for his throat was sore with malaria. His body and tummy ached and his head pounded like it was being hit with a mallet. "Zaza, I want mummy." He cried, tears dripping down his clammy face in torrents.

Zabuza was horrified at what he was seeing. He didn't want his brother to die too! "You'll be fine Haku, you're strong, you'll be fine." The young one was assuring himself as much as he was assuring his brother. He tried wiping his wet shirt across Haku's head like his mother always did when he caught the flu but Haku only got worse.

The fever got into him and he started convulsing. The seizure shocked Zabuza who sprung into action by scooping his brother into his arms and started running in the dead of the night to the city orphanage. That was the only place he knew that would help his brother who was still jerking from convulsions.

"Haku! Haku please stop! Wake up!" The boy yelled to his unconscious brother as he ran the distance. The orphanage was a ways from where they set camp and Zabuza's small legs coupled with Haku's weight could not make it in time. "HAKU!"

"BOY!" Zabuza heard a yell followed by a horn behind him. It was a uber driver he came to learn his name was Biwa Juzo. The man pulled up his car beside the brothers and ran out of the car. He had spotted the older one running and screaming a name before he spotted the convulsing child under the headlights of his car.

The beckoned Zabuza to give Haku to him and he carried the boy to the nearest public tap to them. Kirigakure had abundance of clean water and public taps so it was easy to find one.

"He is too hot. The temperature inside is hotter than that outside." Juzo explained as he stripped Haku of his dirty clothes. "Even though he feels cool to touch and is shivering, he is actually burning inside." The man switched on the tap and placed Haku's shivering form under it.

The boy cried and shook so much that Zabuza was convinced that the man was out to kill his little brother but that was until Haku's teeth gnashing stopped and he stopped curling his toes and fingers altogether.

"You're okay, big guy, you're okay." Juzo cooed in a hushed voice and carried Haku back to his car with Zabuza following behind him. The kind stranger dried Haku with one of the towels he kept in the cab and fed Zabuza a protein bar which he gobbled hungrily. "Where were you taking him before I showed up?"

"The orphanage." Zabuza replied somberly. "They would have free medicine for Haku. I don't want Haku to die!" The boy wailed.

"He wouldn't. I would drive you to the orphanage, okay?" Juzo tousled his hair and proceeded to drive them to the orphanage. He was surprised though when Zabuza just left Haku wrapped up in the towel on the doorstep after knocking and ran away.

He wanted to know why the child did that but wanted to ensure that Haku was safe too so he stayed in the place he was parked a little ways from the orphanage after dropping off the boys. The younger child was found and taken in in a matter of minutes to his relief so he could search for the older sibling now.

"Why did you leave me?" Haku asked Zabuza, tears were falling down his face into his coffee cup at the revelation. "Why?"

"I couldn't stand it!" Zabuza snapped. "I just knew that they were going to separate us in the orphanage if any of us got adopted." Back then he had a classmate that shared a story of how he got separated from his sister who got adopted and was taken abroad. "I didn't want that so I decided that watching you from afar would be better." He said in a softer tone.

"The worst thing is that I don't even remember all of this!" Haku yelled, attracting attention to them from other customers in the shop. "My memories are in pieces because I was too young and too sick to remember anything! You left me! Do you have any idea how lonely I felt? How broken I was anytime they said I was abandoned at the doorstep every time at the orphanage? It was horrible! I went through many sorts of foster homes, I went through a lot! I would have felt better if I knew that I wasn't unwanted at least."

Haku's head landed on the table with a thump and the action was followed by the boy's sobs. He didn't know what to feel. On one hand he was happy to have a sibling and on the other hand, he was angry that that sibling left him alone and clueless.

"Is everything alright here?" Izumi, the pretty woman behind the counter, approached their table and asked them.

"We're fine, sorry for the disturbance." Zabuza apologised and led Haku out of the place.

The other wiped his tears with his sleeves and tried to calm down a little as they both walked down the pathway. "What happened to you after?" He asked Zabuza.

"Juzo-san found me days later and helped me get an apprenticeship with a man that owned a musical store since he could not take me in. That's how I learned to play the violin. I was happy when I saw you with a violin at the subway." Zabuza gave a little smile.

"Why did you run away back then?!" Haku was puzzled at the behaviour, even till now.

"I was surprised, I didn't think I would meet you there and so soon after I got to Konoha." Zabuza defended himself. "I didn't know what to do or say. I was just so happy to see you grown and kinda sad that you didn't remember me so I just ran."

"Coward." Haku huffed. "I don't know how I feel about all of this." He admitted with a drop of his shoulders. "I still need time to think things through and come to terms with all this, you know, having a big brother and all."

"I understand. If you need anything, you have my number." Zabuza's hand twitched to tousle his brother's hair but he didn't. Haku had not come to terms with it yet. "I guess I'd be leaving now. I'm happy that you're healthy and grown, Haku."

Haku watched Zabuza leave absently before turning around to leave for his foster home. It would take time to get used to having a big brother but Haku was somewhat happy that he did. He wasn't so alone in the world anymore.

Sasuke's character is kinda based off mine. I was always second place in middle school but I didn't mind much until I got to highschool and the teachers started calling me out on it. It sucked so bad, believe me comparison sucks, that I started to become envious of my best friend (who was always first place).

But I overcame the jealousy because of my encouraging mum. Some people would throw a feast if they managed to come fifth place overall so who am I to sulk over being second place?Nobody's the best. There's always someone above you and likewise beneath you. All you have to do is just be yourself and be the best you are.

Not gonna lie though, second place sucks so I'm developing Sasuke's character along those lines.

I hope my story (Symphony) inspires some people after it is done!Please leave a review for me to go by.

Have a good day/night!

-Star.