4 – Possibility
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, just the story.
6 WEEKS AGO
"Are you sure you want to do this Sasuke?"
He starts at the question. His father's tone is blank, and that's how it usually is— but there's that slight inflection in the middle that makes him wonder if it's not so much the prospect of him wasting his time with the project as the fact that it's him that's doing it that makes his father wary.
Or maybe, as his mother always tells him, he's just overthinking it. When it comes to his father, Sasuke can't help but do it all the time.
"I'll be able to arrange a charity event otou-san," Sasuke dips a piece of tofu on one of the light sauces as he checks his schedule for the day. "I'm not going to sign away the house to anyone."
"Sasuke-chan!" his mother scolds him from across the dining table.
"Forgive him okaa-san," Itachi placates their mother, an amused smirk on his lips. "You know how snippy Sasuke gets in the morning."
Sasuke can feel his ears heat up. It's true, he's never been a morning person, but that's not why he said what he said, was it? Still, it was uncalled for and he offers his father a small apology. What he doesn't give is more assurances, considering how the last time he did so turned out.
"Hn. I will do my best otou-san, don't worry."
"I wouldn't expect any less Sasuke."
He doesn't know if the blasé statement irks him more than the imagined condescension.
Soon, his father and Itachi leave for the firm, or whatever meeting or business they had lined up for the day. A part of Sasuke revolts at the thought that his brother will be out there, one step ahead of him again, and he has to force himself to stay seated.
The project hasn't started yet but he already regrets agreeing to it.
"Sasuke-chan, stop stabbing your gyoza please. The cook slaved over that."
"Hang the cook," he tells her before putting one of the vegetable dumplings in his mouth. The cook didn't have the decency to make him his favorite meals anyway.
His mother smiles fondly at him and ruffles his hair before she leaves for the day. "Your otou-san is proud of you for doing this, you know. He has absolute faith in your abilities."
Sasuke bites back a bitter retort before it spills from his mouth. Even if he doesn't believe her, his mother doesn't deserve his vitriol— and so early in the morning too. "Aa. Take care today kaa-san."
She's told him of his father's pride in him since he was a kid. So much so that it's become this nigh mythical thing that only materializes behind closed doors. Sasuke thinks anyone would forgive him if after all these years, he's grown to doubt this story.
He leaves the manor house last. He hasn't lived there since high school. He barely visited home while he was in college and he'd bought his own studio penthouse after graduating. But his mother insisted he stay over the night, and he could never say no. Something about not seeing her boys as much as she wants anymore.
Mothers. At least he has her.
A valet brings his Cadillac to the manor's front entrance. While sleek and finished with a bronze sand metallic coat, it's still not as flashy as some of the luxury sedans his contemporaries feel the need to run around with— definitely a lot subtler than the orange monstrosity Naruto drove. Sasuke doesn't care if his car stands out or not, as long as it's faster than anything out there.
There was a time when he'd been afraid of going anywhere near the speed limit, but once he'd forced himself to face that fear, he'd found himself addicted to the adrenaline rush it brought.
The purr of his car turns into a roar as he exits the giant gates of the Uchiha compound and heads for the Public Prosecutors Office.
xxx
Sasuke's known Naruto since he was a kid because their mothers used to be best friends before Uzumaki Kushina died with her husband. But he never liked the loud and messy monkey his mother took him to visit once every month. Just because they were the same age didn't mean they would hit it off— they were too contrary. Naruto was brash and never thought things through. Sasuke liked to do his homework early and he actually liked to bathe every day.
He was just glad his mother couldn't actually adopt the boy because he already had a someone legally taking care of him.
The visits stopped when they became teenagers, or rather, it had been easier for Sasuke to beg off of them citing work or a game or some other extra-curricular activity. It's not like the little monkey was a friendless orphan, there was that pink-haired girl when they visited that one time. He thought it'd be the last he'd see of the blockhead.
That is until was accepted into the prestigious UK Otsutsuki College of Law, opened his supposedly dorm room for one, and found an irritatingly familiar blonde already trying to nail his obnoxious posters to the wall.
He really should have applied to colleges abroad.
Sasuke spent the next seven years after that simultaneously working his ass off to be the top student, interning, and serving in the Law Review, all the while wondering how Naruto hadn't been kicked out yet for poor grade performance. It could be because the names Uzumaki and Namikaze still held a lot of weight, but every semester Naruto really did pull off just enough not to fail.
And here they are now, finally friends after all these years and trying to have a conversation in a packed izakaya.
"And then!" Bits of tempura flew out of the blonde's mouth. "Just when we thought Gato would get away scot-free, two of his hired thugs— Zabuza and Haku— totally sold him out and helped the boys down in KPD bust Gato's drug shipment down in Nami!"
"And if they were asked, would any of these reformed thugs recognize the assistant prosecutor trying Gato's case before they turned informant?"
"Of course they would, I'm a rising star you know!"
Sasuke lets out an undignified snort and downs half of his tankard. He doesn't like day drinking, he doesn't even like beer really, but it's the only thing the lousy izakaya has and Naruto is already driving him to inebriation. A little niggling jealousy at his friend's success prods at him but he determines to drown it with beer.
He may not have done well in school but once Naruto was unleashed in the real world, he's had as much success as trouble. And he caused a lot of trouble. He didn't go the corporate route like Sasuke had, instead he'd gone immediately to the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office. The only problem is, he spends more time chasing criminals down than actually trying them in court.
"If you wanted to play hero," Sasuke wipes a napkin on his lips, like the prim young master Naruto likes to call him. "You should have just gone into the police department."
"Nah, I'm gonna do a lot more good where I am. What about you? Kakashi and everyone at the department still ask about you, you know."
Him? Sasuke scoffs at his friend's eternal optimism. And Kakashi's stubbornness for that matter… At least he didn't ask about the Rinha case.
"I'm a corporate hack remember? I'll make more money in a year than you'll ever earn in a lifetime and maybe a decade down the road, I'll be backing you for your first Parliament run."
"Fuck you! I would so be Prime Minister by then, believe it!"
"Yeah, whatever." Sasuke pushes Naruto out of the izakaya when their two hours is up. Besides, people were beginning to talk, with whispers of his name paired with a derogatory slur or two. He could feel the eyes gravitating towards him and not for the reason they used to. "Will you hurry up? I want to get this orphanage trip over with and you've already cost me half the day."
The distaste must show in his face because Naruto laughs at him as they get back to his car. "Geez teme, they're just kids. They're not gonna scam you out of your money!"
xxx
"Your son is here, Uchiha-sama."
Sasuke startles and straightens in his cold metal seat. It's not comfortable and he might have dozed off for how long he's been stuck inside that interrogation room. But he was too busy rehearsing the litany of excuses and apologies he'd tell his father.
And now it seems his time has come.
He's ready for the lecture, maybe some shouting even if Uchiha Fugaku has never been known to raise his voice in anger. He doesn't care, he'd bear it for his friends. Sasuke knows his father would rail and forbid him from associating with them ever again. If it had been his kid who drove without a license with four of his classmates and slammed a crazy expensive car into the divider of a freeway, he'd probably want the same thing. They were lucky they only caused traffic and didn't crash into another vehicle.
It wasn't his idea and he didn't want to do it in the first place…. but he's never really had friends before, and he'd take the blame if he had to.
So yes, he is ready for all of that. But all his father gives him is a resigned look of disappointment. Like he expected this of him but is still dejected to see it happen.
Sasuke stands up and bows to his father, his forehead almost touching the steel table. "It was my fault, otou-san. I wanted to show-off—"
"We're leaving Sasuke."
"But—"
His father doesn't wait and leaves with barely a glance at him. Sasuke follows and looks around for his friends. Where were they? Why didn't the cops stick him in a jail cell with them?
"If you're looking for your friends," his father injects as much bile into the word as he can, "They've left hours ago."
"What?" Sasuke's first instinct is to be indignant. Did his father threaten them? Did he scare them away? But his father refuses to explain.
It isn't until he gets home that he understands.
His friends had left him there to take the blame for it all.
xxx
His great-uncle Madara is kind of a dick, Sasuke decides. If he isn't, why would he have given an orphanage a home that needs three fucking flights of stairs to reach?
He stops his Cadillac in front of the stone steps that led to Shinseikatsu Homes and looks down the street both ways. The area is pretty out of the way but kami, hoodlums taking interest in his car is gonna be just the rotten cherry on the top of his shitty week.
"Hey there Aoi-chan!" Naruto calls out to a middle-schooler standing on the base of the stairs. "Wanna race up?"
The gangly brunette snorts at the dobe and Sasuke finds himself liking the kid just a little. "I'm tired from school Naruto-nii. You can go make a fool of yourself though."
"Why are you so mean to me? I'm gonna snitch on you to Asahi."
"You're such a child Naruto." Sasuke goes on up the steps, adamant on finally starting this project. The sooner he finishes with this the sooner he can get back to his cases. "Hurry up."
"I'll show you who's a child!" the dobe races up the steps, leaving him and the kid Aoi behind and automatically invalidating whatever point he's trying to make.
Wait. Sasuke sneaks a look at the most probably orphaned girl the idiot left him with.
He sighs and cards a hand through his hair. "Ladies first?" he motions for her to go on ahead of him. It turns out to be the worst of sins when the girl fixes him with a sneer.
"And let you see up my skirt? No thanks."
Sasuke splutters and fumes behind the girl. If this is a preview of what's to come, then it's going to be the worst two weeks of his life. For a while, they walk up in silence occasionally pierced by Naruto's exclamations of victory. He notices the girl peek at him every now and then, until she slows down to his pace. "Are you and Naruto-nii here to adopt a kid?"
He pinches the bridge of his nose. "For the last time, I am not gay, and definitely not gay with him."
"Yeesh, chill," the girl chuckles at his expense. "But if you have to deny it all the time I mean…"
Sasuke rolls his eyes and determines to ignore the girl going forward. He wasn't this obnoxious when he was the same age. Uchiha Mikoto taught him manners and common sense. He feels the pocket in his phone vibrate. A text from Itachi.
"Don't be a prat Sasuke. Do try not to leave the place having murdered a kid.
Remember what's at stake for you."
What the hell? How did he even— he looks up at a snickering Naruto, phone in hand, with the camera clearly pointed at him. Sasuke flashes him a one-fingered salute and the blonde takes another picture before rushing to the top of the steps.
Sasuke shoves his phone back in his pockets. He didn't need to be told what to do. His whole life he's been working to get to this point. Itachi is the heir, it's a given that he'd be the one to succeed their father as managing partner. Meanwhile Sasuke's had to push himself into the picture to be considered as well.
"Oh god, is Naruto-nii seriously always like that?"
"Worse."
"Well, my brother is fucked."
"Language," Sasuke scolds the girl— Aoi, and asks what she means by that.
"My little brother, Asahi, absolutely loves Naruto-nii. He's all he ever talks about. Every time he comes over to visit, he's got a new adventure to tell Asahi and I have to listen to the repeat performance at night when I put him to sleep. Did all of his stories actually happen?"
"Probably." Sasuke hopes Naruto at least had the presence of mind to censor names and places. The last thing any of these kids need is to be called in to testify to an ethics violation complaint.
"Asahi wants to be just like his idol. He's even taken to copying Naruto-nii's stupid catch phrase."
Sasuke shakes his head and reminisces about a kid in a red cape, shouting "believe it" at the top of his lungs. "Your brother could do worse."
"I'm about to win you slowpokes!" Naruto waves at them one last time before tripping through the gigantic wooden gateposts that stands sentry over the orphanage.
Aoi laughs at the blockhead's clumsiness and Sasuke can't help the grin that spreads across his face. She asks how they ever became friends when they're so different— an understatement if he's ever heard one. "Hn, I've been trying to figure it out for years."
"I know who you are you know. You're that lawyer everyone's talking about."
Of course she does. Now even kids are being told what a big bad wolf he is. "What about it?"
"Nothing." she shrugs. "You just don't seem like guy they say you are."
Aoi speeds up ahead of him, despite her earlier protest about him and skirts. Maybe kids aren't so bad after all, Sasuke thinks.
Naruto is swinging around a petite, pink-haired girl in his arms while Iruka jumps out of the way by the time Sasuke and Aoi get to the top. The memory of a blushing little girl next to his mother, trying to get a disgruntled Naruto to eat something other than ramen, flashes through his mind. He thinks it must be the same girl, that shade of strawberry blonde isn't exactly common.
Or is it? He thinks back to that annoying incident in the Hyuuga's café the day before.
Naruto waves them over and introduces the five-foot-something fairy to them as the "smartest doctor in all of Konoha," Haruno Sakura. Sasuke observes both the doctor and the middle-schooler imperceptibly startle and weirdly enough, both out of fear it seems.
Whatever. It's not any of his business.
"But what are you doing here Sakura-chan?" Naruto asks the doctor, "I thought you'd be up to your eyeballs in patients and surgeries or whatever."
"I'm not training to be a surgeon Naruto. And I'm actually taking a break from the hospital right now…" A decisive look settles on her face. "I'm thinking of temporarily helping out here in the orphanage in the meantime."
Iruka exclaims his appreciation, especially since they're already so short staffed. Naruto seems to be excited about it, wishing someone like her had been there when he was a kid. And while they're all happy and congratulatory, Sasuke studies the doctor.
Looks like the neurotic, workaholic type, based on how stiffly she ironed the blouse she's wearing. Cares too much about what people think of her. But she has an easy smile on and she's pretty enough that kids probably won't be afraid of her.
They seem to trust her well enough.
But he saw it— that split second of panic before she made her announcement.
The kind people make when they're about to lie.
A/N: Have you ever been in a place where you thought you had no future and then suddenly a whole host of possibilities open up? It's exhilarating.
Anyway. Sasuke and Sakura officially, finally, meet.