Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or any of its associated characters!
Summary: COMPLETE (new chapter up everyday - total of 35 chapters!). Sasuke's a writer whose been writing the same words for years. He's tired, he's annoyed, and his money situation is...pretty messed up, even by student standards. Enter Naruto. Modern AU (College/University), Sasunaru/Narusasu. Posted for Sasuke's birthday!
A/N: I can't believe how well everyone is responding to this! Thank you so much. I really hope you like this chapter, too!
Enter Naruto
Chapter 3: Usuratonkachi
One night and another five thousand words later, Sasuke awoke feeling rested, accomplished, and excited. He checked his phone as soon as his alarm went off.
'Who decided 8:30 was a good time for class. Who. I'm gonna die.'
Sasuke snorted. He replied quickly. 'You could have checked the schedule before you signed up for it, idiot.'
He had just grabbed his toothbrush when he heard his phone buzz.
'IT'S REQUIRED'
And then, a moment later, 'YOU BIG JERK'
Sasuke found himself smiling, and quickly went back to the bathroom before he drooled toothpaste all over himself. He splashed some water on his face and grabbed a bunch of layers for the day—class was in fifteen minutes. He could probably make it fine.
He shuffled out of the door, typing a quick reply of 'sucks to suck' as he put in his headphones.
He fought a laugh at the 'OMG' he received not a moment later, but was crossing a street, and he was cutting it awfully close. He focused on getting to class.
'Let's get lunch.'
Sasuke hated how his entire being felt like it was on fire after reading the message. He felt like he had drunk eight cups of coffee straight—jittery, nervous, and as if he had an uncontrollable urge to get up and pace to burn off this energy—
'Where should I meet you?'
'You're in the old building?'
'Yes'
'I'm almost there. Front door?'
Sasuke barely—just barely—managed not to run. He was greeted with a bright grin and a clap on the shoulder, and then they were on their way.
As the week went on, Naruto's responses became few and far in between. Rationally, Sasuke knew the blonde was busy (if his earlier rant to Kakashi was anything to go by) and would probably get back to normal as soon as the week was up, but that didn't help this stupid feeling of…loss.
He frowned at his phone. It had taken him barely a day to get used to checking it and always having a message waiting for him. Barely two days to have him expect it. And now—now, without anything coming in—
He frowned down at his desk.
He felt so—needy. This was so stupid—he had work to do, and Naruto would talk to him soon. Once this all was over. Probably. Hopefully. Maybe he ought to message the blonde again? Maybe—
Sasuke let out a frustrated breath, sliding his phone away from himself.
He had work to do.
Naruto tapped his pen against his cheek, trying to do something with it other than chew on it. Really, you would think he would have learned after the first time he had a pen explode in his mouth—
He caught himself, just as he started to flick a bit of the plastic on his teeth, throwing the pen away from himself. He didn't even know why he was holding it; he was working on his laptop…
He swallowed, eyeing the pillow he had hidden his phone underneath. Now that nothing was in his hand, he felt almost…twitchy with the need to check it—
He let out a breath, forcing himself to turn back to his computer. He had to focus—he knew that. He had known that for a really long time now. The moment he picked up his phone, it would be three hours later and Naruto would be here with even less time than he already had—
But then, on the other hand, he hadn't talked to Sasuke yet today…
"Fuck," he whispered, shaking his head a little. Yes, he hadn't talked to Sasuke. Sasuke, who he had texted pretty much every other minute since he had gotten his number. Sasuke, who was funny and witty and sarcastic and rapidly growing to be one of Naruto's favourite people—
Sasuke, his friend, whose chance of being gay was slim to none—and chance of being into Naruto was definitely none…if not in the negatives entirely.
Still—
That didn't stop Naruto from wanting to talk to him.
He didn't know how someone could be such a dick and yet so fucking fun to be around. Naruto felt like he was on the verge of talking to him every other second—
He let out a long breath, turning back to his computer. Sasuke would still be around after this week, he told himself—right now, he had about eighty names to memorize, and he was rapidly running out of time to do it.
Later that class, Kakashi pulled Sasuke aside.
"As you know," he explained, "I generally have Naruto go through some of this work—partly because he has a great eye, but also because I know firsthand how subjective writing can be—especially when it comes to stylistic preferences. It isn't fair to my students if I force you to write how I want you to write, even if it is by accident."
He paused for a moment.
"I wanted to ask you if you were comfortable with me continuing to do this with your work." He indicated Sasuke's updated folder of writing, of which the majority was now beginning to describe a loudmouth, energetic blonde with piercing blue eyes—
"…I would prefer if it was only you reading it," Sasuke said quietly.
"Not a problem." Kakashi looked unbelievably cheerful. Sasuke scowled and turned on his heel; his bag was already packed—
"He doesn't eat enough when he's stressed," Kakashi said, just as Sasuke reached the door.
"Excuse me?"
"Normally, Iruka and I drive down to give him some food—he loves miso ramen, you know—but we haven't been able to this week. Shame."
Sasuke spared him a brief glance before he left the room, the words turning over in his mind.
It was embarrassing how easily Kakashi had played him, Sasuke thought to himself, as he picked up his take-out. How had the man even known he knew where Naruto lived? Or had his number? Or would go grab him food because he wasn't eating enough?
Sasuke sighed. He was hopeless.
With each step he took towards Naruto's house, Sasuke felt his regret grow tenfold. This was—stupid. Incredibly so. This was the dumbest idea he had ever had—and yet his feet kept moving—moving him closer—until he stood, here, on the doorstep—and his arm must have had a mind of its own with the way it was raising itself to knock—
The door opened.
"'Sup?"
This was…not Naruto.
Sasuke blinked, suddenly worried he had come to the wrong place—
"Is—Naruto here?"
"Oh—oh yeah, 'course! I'll grab him for ya." The brown haired man walked away, and Sasuke heard him hollering for Naruto. Sasuke viciously shoved his nerves as far down as they would go—
"Wh—Sasuke! Hey!" Naruto gave him a sparkling grin, but Sasuke could see the bags under his eyes.
"I brought food." Sasuke held up the bag.
"I fucking love you."
Sasuke's heart jumped into his throat.
"Come in, come in!" Naruto beckoned him in. "I'm upstairs."
Sasuke followed Naruto into his room, which the blonde immediately began blabbering apologies for. The place was an absolute mess. Sasuke didn't really care either way, but Naruto certainly seemed to think he did.
"Idiot," he sat on the couch, "I don't care. Eat your food before it gets cold."
"What did you get?"
"Ramen."
It was like Naruto had been brought back to life. His eyes widened and his mouth opened into a slow gape, and he launched himself at the bag so quickly that Sasuke jerked back—
"Which one's mine?"
"They're the same."
"I owe you," Naruto spoke for the first time in minutes, having eaten his meal at a ridiculous speed. "I owe you so much."
Sasuke looked down at his own half-finished meal.
"Do you want the rest of mine?"
Naruto's eyes went wide. "Do you not like it?"
"It's fine," Sasuke said, "but it's a bit much for me."
He absolutely would not tell Naruto that he had already eaten before he had gone and bought this.
"Really? I mean—if you—if you don't mind..." Naruto ducked his head a little, his grin a mix of obviously excited and just a little sheepish. Sasuke only rolled his eyes, passing along the container.
"What do you have coming up?" Sasuke asked.
"Uh," he paused to slurp the noodles—Sasuke fought back a snort as one slapped against his chin, "it's Wednesday, right?"
Sasuke nodded.
"Okay. I've got three papers and my exam for Friday. I've finished up everything else, I think. Oh, and tomorrow's class was cancelled, which rocks because I can just hole up like I did today."
He laughed, giving up on using the chopsticks in order to tip the rest of the food into his mouth.
"Have you even left your house today?"
"Nope." Naruto grinned at him.
Sasuke snorted.
"Do you have anything this week?" Naruto set the container down—now empty—and shuffled back through the clothes on the floor to get to his desk.
"Nothing important. Just readings and the usual."
"Ugh, lucky."
There was a pause. Sasuke shifted, glancing around the room. He tried to convince himself that he was just comfortable, here—that the walk had been longer than anticipated—and not that he was trying to find an excuse to stay in Naruto's company—
"...Do you need help?" Sasuke heard himself offer.
"Help?"
"With your work."
"You—is that okay? You don't mind?"
Sasuke raised an eyebrow.
"Would I offer if I did?"
Naruto laughed. "Okay—yeah, uh…well I'm not totally at the point I wanna be for the exam so I'll freak out if you quiz me, but…"
"Isn't it a bit early for a midterm?"
"Oh—yeah, no, it's not that." Naruto ran a hand through his hair. "It's like—a continuation course from last year, so it's basically that exam all over again. They say it's to test our baseline but then it should be formative, and it totally isn't. It's fifteen percent." Naruto ended the sentence with a groan.
"Um, actually, though—I do have some really rough drafts of my essays—would you mind…?"
"Send them over."
"Ugh, you're the best." Naruto sagged a little in his chair, smiling back at him. "Facebook okay?"
"I don't have it."
"Of course you don't." Naruto laughed. "Email?"
"Uchiha 'S' 'A'. The university one."
"'Kay…sent!" He spun his chair around. "Thank you so much, Sasuke."
"Hn."
They sat in silence, Sasuke attempting to focus in between glances at Naruto. The blonde always seemed to be…chewing on something. Either his pen—or his lip, or his nails…
Sasuke shook himself, turning back to his laptop. Naruto's writing was...not bad. He clearly knew the subjects well, although Sasuke didn't, but his grammar did leave something to be desired. Then again, Sasuke was notorious even when it came to his own writing.
Sasuke stretched as he finished commenting on the last essay, stifling a yawn.
"How're you holding up?"
Sasuke looked up from his computer; Naruto was the one watching him, this time.
"Fine." He took out the headphone he had put in—although he hadn't ended up listening to anything. "I just finished."
"What—all three?"
"Yeah."
"Whoa! You rock!" Naruto stumbled over to lean on the back of the couch, looking over Sasuke's shoulder.
"I just cleaned them up for the most part." Sasuke opened them up on his computer so Naruto could see.
"Whoa," Naruto grimaced, "so much red…"
"It keeps track of what I changed. It looks worse than it is."
"If you say so..." Naruto moved along the back of the couch, seemingly stretching his legs from side to side. "Were they—okay?"
"They were fine. You and I need to talk about semicolons."
Naruto blinked at him.
"Semi—huh?"
"A semicolon links two independent clauses." Sasuke tapped the screen. "You can't use it in the place of a comma—or a colon. They are all different. And this is a hyphen, not a dash—if you're going to—"
"Ugh," Naruto groaned, planting his face in the couch, "m'sorry. You're gonna have to tell me this all again later."
Sasuke paused, eyeing him for a moment.
"You sound like you're about to fall asleep."
"I feel like that, too," came Naruto's muffled voice from where he had planted his face into the couch.
"Do you want a coffee?"
"No! No," Naruto's head sprung up, "you already brought me food. I should just—walk around or something. I've barely moved today."
"Do you want to take a break, then? We could go on a walk."
"Yeah." Naruto took in a few deep breaths, clearly trying to wake himself up. "Yeah, if that's okay. Lemmie grab my jacket and stuff."
"Sorry that I haven't been replying much." Naruto held his hands behind his head, and he took in a deep breath. The air was crisp and cool—the perfect opposite of the blonde's stuffy, warm room.
Sasuke shrugged. "You're busy."
Naruto threw him a lopsided grin. "Still. I do it to everybody, for what it's worth—I learned in first year that I had to put my phone away—like really away—when I gotta get shit done."
"Hn," Sasuke glanced away, "…how was going back home?"
"Oh! That was good. Awesome, really. They pamper the hell outta me." Naruto laughed. "Iruka always does my laundry for me—and he cooks like crazy. Kakashi just spies on me at school and reports back if I'm not eating enough or stuff. He totally exaggerates to get me more food."
He laughed again.
"What about you? You see your family often?"
Sasuke's good mood faltered. Naruto seemed to notice.
"Ah—shit," he faced Sasuke, ducking down a little as if trying to catch his eye, "I didn't hit another sore spot, did I?"
"…We're not on speaking terms," Sasuke answered quietly.
Naruto's eyes widened. Sasuke made a point of moving past him to continue walking.
"Shit, sorry," Naruto said after a moment, trotting to catch up with him. "I—can I ask why not?"
Sasuke frowned, but Naruto was looking at him with such an earnest expression—eyebrows furrowed, eyes wide, teeth running over his lip—Sasuke's annoyance kept slipping from his grip—
"They didn't want me to study writing," he answered shortly. "I did."
Naruto didn't let it go.
"So they never spoke to you again? What the fuck?"
"…It…yeah."
"What the fuck. What the fuck! Who does that?!"
Sasuke sighed. "It's complicated."
"Yeah, it better be!" Naruto let out a breath and Sasuke couldn't help but shake his head at the way he was so...puffed up with righteous anger. He was such a—moron. Naruto was so—
Naruto turned back to stare at him expectantly. Sasuke's smile faded a little as he debated where to start.
"…Have you heard of the Uchiha hotels?"
"The really fancy ones? What about 'em?"
Sasuke snorted a little. "Usuratonkachi," he muttered to himself.
"Th—hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Naruto spun around with an expression that could have been offended if he wasn't smiling so wide—
Sasuke smirked.
"Is it a different language? What did you call me?!"
Naruto nudged Sasuke and his smug demeanor faltered just long enough to break into a smile.
"Idiot," he said finally.
"I'm an idiot or it means idiot?"
Sasuke smirked. "Both."
Naruto swatted at his face—Sasuke pulled away just quick enough for his fingers to graze his nose.
"You ass! What language?"
"Japanese."
"Are you Japanese?"
"I wasn't born there," Sasuke shrugged. "I never really made an effort to learn the language. But my family spoke it and I learned a few words here and there."
"Including insults, of course." Naruto grinned at him, eyeing Sasuke playfully. "What's jerk in Japanese?"
Sasuke thought for a moment.
"I don't remember that much." He scratched his chin. "Teme comes close, I suppose—"
"Teme?" Naruto tested the word, tilting his head side to side. "You're a giant teme! I hate you, teme! Yep. It fits perfectly."
Sasuke rolled his eyes, biting down on a smile.
"It's more of a rude way to say 'you'," he glanced at Naruto, "so what you're saying doesn't really make sense—"
"How am I supposed to use it then?" Naruto swung around, walking backwards to grin at him.
"Like you're referring to me."
"Like...hey, teme! C'mere, teme! That work?"
Sasuke shook his head, feeling the laugh bubble up in his throat—
"You're such an idiot."
"Nuh-uh! I'm an usu—usutokatchki—!"
"Usuratonkachi."
"Usuratonkachi!"
A/N: You guys...I had to. It was too good a chance to pass up. And, in keeping with my references, sucks to suck is a direct reference to my best friend: the snarky genius to my blonde moron self :')
What did you think of this chapter? I've absolutely adored reading everyone's reactions so far. I can't believe we're only on the third chapter with how much positive feedback you guys have given me!
More about Sasuke tomorrow :)
Until then,
- Kinomi
