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: Okay! So! As of tomorrow, and until Saturday, I will be away at a summer camp where technology is not forbidden, but it's...discouraged? So the chapters will still be uploaded! But they may be at random times, or very late at night, or things like that. Just letting you guys know :)
Enter Naruto
Chapter 19: The Fridge Cleaning Mission
The winter break was fast approaching, and Sasuke was starting to freak out.
Naruto glanced over at him. Sasuke was staring at his screen, eyes wider than they should be, fingers poised over his keyboard—unmoving. He hadn't blinked since Naruto had started watching him.
Well, okay, maybe Sasuke was doing a little more than 'starting' to freak out.
Naruto looked back at his own work. He really ought to focus; his last exam was tomorrow morning and he had really put it on the backburner for his other courses, but…
He sighed and tossed his notes to the side, looking back at Sasuke again. From what he understood, Sasuke had finished everything he needed done for school a while ago—now, all that was left was finishing his manuscript for Kakashi. Arguably the most important thing.
Sasuke's fingers twitched, but didn't hit a key.
That, and meeting the parents, of course. He wondered how Sasuke was feeling about it.
Considering he hadn't brought it up at all, probably not too great. It was…
Naruto checked his phone—about a week until Christmas. Naruto didn't really know the date or time that Sasuke would be going 'home', just that it would be during the winter break, close to the 24th.
The 24th.
Oh fuck.
Naruto dropped his pen.
It was a nearly week until Christmas and Naruto hadn't bought Sasuke a fucking present yet. He hadn't even bought anything for his parents! He had completely forgotten—fuck!
Heart pounding, Naruto threw open his laptop. He usually kept some messy lists of presents he could give to people at some point—he had a vague memory of saving something for Sasuke, so if he could just find it—
The one for his parents would be easy to find—that one he had been building up for years. Maybe one day he'd buy that dog and convince his parents it was a present for them…
Damn it, Naruto, focus!
He checked the few links he had saved, biting his lip. The chance that something was gonna make it here on time…not to mention be personal enough—
"I think," Naruto jumped at the sound of Sasuke's voice, "that I'm done."
Sasuke was still staring at his laptop—but this time, in some sort of awe. It took Naruto a moment to figure out Sasuke was talking about his writing.
Naruto blinked.
Sasuke was talking about his writing—!
"Holy shit!" Naruto jumped up. "Sasuke, that's amazing! Are you serious?"
Sasuke looked up at him—looking like he was having a hard time believing it himself.
"I think so," he breathed. "I've gone through it a hundred times—and—I…I'm at the point where I keep—every time I make a change, I end up changing it back. I think—I think I've done everything I can do."
"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted, grabbing ahold of Sasuke by the shoulders. "You're the best!"
Sasuke scoffed, but he couldn't quite hide the happy look on his face. Well, it was more of a relieved look—or maybe disbelieving—
"We have to celebrate!" They could—get some champagne, or something—maybe go out for dinner—this was huge—
"After your exam," Sasuke stopped him in his tracks, "then we're both free."
"…Ah—shit, okay," he relented; Sasuke had a point, "okay, yeah—but then—then we definitely have to celebrate!"
He glanced back at his laptop, still open to a page of a particularly nice notebook for sale.
Hm.
"Hey, Sasuke?"
"Yeah?"
"Wanna send me your writing?"
"To edit?" He seemed to consider it.
"I just wanna read it," Naruto lied straight through his teeth. "I won't give you feedback unless you want it."
"…Alright," Sasuke agreed after a moment.
Naruto smiled. This present was gonna be awesome.
This present was gonna be awful.
Naruto glared at the papers in front of him. He had already been forced to reprint them—three times. He was on his last pack of printer paper, and if he had to print one more time, he was gonna have to go out to buy more ink. He hadn't even been able to readthe damn story yet, and he was dying to. But, apparently, in order to bind a book properly, the pages needed to be printed in a very specific way—at least, that's what this stupid online guide told him.
What the stupid online guide didn't tell him was how to get the fucking pages to print that way.
"I swear to god, if this doesn't work…" he muttered to himself, glaring at the printer as it whirred and buzzed.
Sasuke was going to be back in an hour—he had a couple of meetings and things to finish up, apparently. They had been spending almost every hour of every day together, so the time that Naruto had to make this work was incredibly limited.
Luckily, he had two amazing parents on his side—one of them being very craft-inclined. After his exam, he had run the idea by Iruka, and ended up receiving a mountain of knowledge, glues, paper, and fabrics. While Iruka gathered everything he thought might be useful, Naruto had gone back to the coffee shop where he had met Sasuke, and promptly groveled until they agreed to sell him one of their spare tablecloths. It was a lot more material than he would probably need, but if making the cover turned out to be as difficult as making the damn pages, maybe that was a good thing.
The printer spat the first page out, and Naruto caught it, scanning it quickly. It…actually could work. Maybe he could do this.
His phone buzzed.
Sasuke was gonna be about an hour late. Thank god.
Naruto didn't sound too disappointed, at least.
Sasuke frowned. He'd thought that Naruto's exam would have given him plenty of time, but it was proving incredibly difficult to find a gift that Naruto would like.
Well, no, that wasn't entirely true—Naruto would like pretty much anything that Sasuke would give him. But he wanted his present to be...better than that. He wanted Naruto to love it.
But this store had proved as useless as the others, and Sasuke was rapidly running out of places he could get to in time.
He walked back out to the street, looking back the way he had come before continuing on. He could always take the bus back…
He paused, staring across the street. That…looked like some sort of garden store? Maybe…
He met Naruto at his house, later on. His roommates had already gone home for the holidays, which meant they had the house to themselves…
"I'm free!" Naruto yelled as he opened the door, spinning around with his arms wide open.
Sasuke snorted, dodging his arms to step inside. Naruto closed the door with his back and grinned at him.
"I shut my computer down for the first time in months," he said proudly, "closed all my tabs and everything."
"I'm sure it appreciates it," Sasuke deadpanned, nudging his shoes over to the wall.
"Okay, so," Naruto grinned at him, crossing his arms, "we're celebrating—but we also have a job to do."
"Oh?"
"Yep. C'mere."
He shuffled over to the kitchen, pulling Sasuke along by his hands.
"Okay," Naruto opened the fridge, "you see all this?"
"Yes."
"We need to eat it all."
…
"Excuse me?"
"We have to eat everything that will expire over the break. Or throw it out—whatever."
"I'll take it." Sasuke frowned.
Naruto blinked up at him.
"I'll eat it over the break."
Naruto paused—mouth opening and closing for a moment. Had Naruto forgotten he didn't have anywhere to go over the holiday? Sasuke couldn't have imagined he had—and he felt something—something like hope—bubble up in his chest, because the alternative was that Naruto had just—assumed they would be together—
"Okay," Naruto said after a moment, turning towards the fridge, "but for now, let's start with this."
He pulled out a bottle of liquor.
Sasuke smirked.
"Okay, okay—!" Naruto could feel himself shouting, and he stopped to take a breath.
"You're so loud." Sasuke rubbed his ear.
"Sorry." Naruto leaned over, pulling Sasuke's hand away to kiss his ear, giggling.
"…Idiot," he muttered, but he didn't pull away, even as Naruto changed the kiss to a small bite.
He giggled again.
"M'always loud," Naruto grinned, "you like it when I'm loud."
Sasuke's face went red and Naruto just kept on giggling, grabbing at the fridge so he didn't stumble—
"Okay—you distracted me. I was saying—"
He stopped.
"What was I saying?" He turned to Sasuke.
"You were saying 'okay' a lot."
"Teme!" He shoved Sasuke's shoulder. Sasuke barely budged—and his smirk only grew wider. God that look suited him…
"No—I was," Naruto thought for a second, "I can't remember. Okay—"
"Stop saying 'okay'—"
"What's your favourite colour?" He didn't know that yet. There was so much he didn't know about Sasuke yet—
Sasuke snorted.
"Is it black? I bet it's black." Naruto paused, looking back into the fridge. "Hey! Somebody left tomatoes in here!"
"It's navy blue, idiot." He peered over the fridge door. "Give me those."
"Trade ya for another drink," Naruto grinned, handing over the bag.
"Fine." Sasuke wandered away. "Your favourite colour is orange, isn't it?"
"How'd you know?"
Sasuke looked at him, incredulous.
"Naruto," he said seriously, "I've been to your house."
Naruto laughed.
"Good point. Oh—ugh, somebody left a cucumber in here." He grimaced at the melted mess. "I bet it was Kiba…"
"Add it to the bag." Sasuke shoved the bin closer to Naruto with his foot. They had designated a bin for 'gross stuff I never want to touch again' early on in the fridge cleaning mission.
Naruto made a face and tossed it in.
"One of the veggie drawers is clear," he said, pulling it out of the fridge completely, "but it's pretty nasty."
"I've got it," Sasuke offered, passing Naruto his drink.
"Thanks," Naruto said, plopping himself down on the ground so he could grin at Sasuke properly. He was just so great—
"Have you ever had a dog?"
"Hm?" Naruto blinked out of his daydream, only half-hearing Sasuke.
"You seem like the kind of family who should have a dog," Sasuke muttered.
Naruto laughed.
"I've been trying to convince Iruka and Kakashi forever! I think I'd have one already if I hadn't moved out."
"I figured."
"Let me guess," Naruto propped himself up on his knees, "you're a cat person?"
Sasuke rolled his eyes, continuing to scrub the tray.
"I prefer quiet pets."
"We could have a quiet dog!" Naruto protested.
Sasuke hand paused and he slowly turned back to raise an eyebrow at Naruto.
"We?"
Naruto felt his face grow hot.
"I mean—like—you know," he stammered.
Sasuke's smirk only grew—the bastard—
"Shut up," Naruto muttered, going back to the fridge. "Take this moldy cheese."
He shoved it at Sasuke.
"Why do I want this?" Sasuke said, taking it nonetheless.
"Cut off the gross pieces and it's fine."
Sasuke frowned at it, but dutifully grabbed a knife.
There was a pause. Naruto wasn't about to ask another question anytime soon—Sasuke picked up on everything and Naruto was way too drunk to be able to not admit how frequently he pictured his future with Sasuke—not that he necessarily minded Sasuke knowing, but he was just such a dick about it—
"What do you want your house to be like? In the future?" Sasuke broke the silence.
Naruto blinked.
"Like, my dream home?" Naruto thought for a moment. "Uh…"
What kind of home would he like to live in once he moved out?
He laughed.
"Well, y'know, once I make my first billion—"
Sasuke dropped the knife to whack him over the head. Naruto dissolved into giggles.
"What—you don't want a badass mansion? With like a pool—and a secret door?"
"A secret door?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow at him.
"Yeah," Naruto grinned, "like in the movies, when you like—pull a book off a bookshelf and it swings open? That shit is awesome."
Sasuke snorted.
"It's probably also a fire hazard," he pointed out.
"Shut up, asshole," Naruto pointed a package of sliced meats at him, "don't you ruin my dream home!"
"Those are expired," Sasuke muttered, taking the package from Naruto and tossing it away. "Give me an honest answer."
Naruto shrugged a little, standing up. Crouching like this was hurting his knees.
"I dunno," he said honestly. "Home is...it's kinda more about the people, for me, you know? I like it when it feels—like—like a piece of you is there. Like it's really obvious who lives there. Even if that doesn't make it pretty…like—I had thing nightcap thing as a kid, and I wore it every night. It looks like crap, now—the pompom's falling apart and there's holes all over it and it's totally faded—but I love it, y'know? And it's obvious. It's obvious that I loved it."
Sasuke eyed him for a moment.
"You bend the spines of books, don't you?"
Naruto laughed.
"You bet I do," he said, waggling his eyebrows. "I write in them too. Highlight sometimes—fold page corners—all of it."
He pressed against Sasuke, letting his cup rest on the counter, behind him—
Sasuke smirked.
"You're a nightmare."
"I am a fucking delight," he grinned, twisting his fingers through the belt loops of Sasuke's pants—
"In that area, sure."
"Wh—" Naruto's voice cut off into a laugh as he registered Sasuke's words—fuck—the affection rose in his chest and he felt the words on the tip of his tongue again—
"You have that smile again," Sasuke said.
"I—huh?"
"What are you thinking about?"
Was it still too early to tell Sasuke he loved him? Naruto wasn't sure. He probably shouldn't do it when they were both drunk, though.
"What about your dream home? How do you picture it?"
Naruto pulled away a little, but kept his hands on Sasuke's hips—he just—every time, the fact that he could reach out and touch Sasuke like this, pull him closer, press up against him—
Sasuke looked back towards the fridge, his good mood seeming to falter.
"What you said," his eyes flickered towards Naruto for a moment, "about a house being—more of a home instead of…something out of a magazine. I'd like that."
Naruto got the sense that Sasuke knew much more about the latter.
"Good," he bounced his body against Sasuke's just for a moment, "because I'm a mess."
And just like that, Sasuke's good mood was back.
"And my dream home is going to include you, now, is it?"
Naruto's grin widened.
"Mmhmmm," Naruto felt like he was floating, "you liiike me."
"Liar."
"You like my body," Naruto sing-songed, "you like my face."
"I like your mouth shut."
"You like my mouth on your mouth."
"You can't prove that."
"Oh I can't, can't I?" Naruto breathed.
"No." Sasuke leaned closer.
Naruto smiled as Sasuke's lips met his. It was impossible to get tired of this. He just felt so—so happy—
They didn't end up cleaning the rest of the fridge that night.
A/N: Listen, listen, Sasuke has never had a cat before. He has no idea how loud they can be :P
I hope you guys liked this chapter! Let me know :)
See you tomorrow,
- Kinomi
