5:58 AM.

The cold morning light cascaded onto Sasuke's bedspread. He fixed his eyes on the shadows cast upon his sheets, writhing and quavering to the lone howl of the wind.

"It's Tuesday, isn't it?" Sasuke murmured sadly. "No wonder I can't sleep."

He shut off his alarm clock a mere second before it rang.

The blunted blade of insomnia etched exhaustion into his movement. Sasuke listlessly carried his body down the stairs and past the kitchen. Today, he wasn't hungry.

The sun peeked shyly past the acres of lush forest. Sasuke shivered. Not a good day to be wearing a T-shirt. He began to walk down the main road.

He went by Sakura's house. Not yet. I still need a little more time to tell her.

He hurriedly walked past Naruto's apartment. Good lord, I heard the neighbors complaining about him and Tenten. Maybe I'll buy him some condoms tomorrow.

Then Sasuke stopped at the graveyard.

His feet dragged up the grassy hill, and he searched for the engravings on one simple slab of stone he desired to see today.

"Well, are you ashamed of me?" Sasuke chuckled softly, kneeling down at the foot of the gravestone. "Are you angry? Pleased? Annoyed?"

"Sasuke!" Sasuke's head snapped up to find his friend gazing down at him. "Sasuke-kun."

"Naruto, what are you doing here?" Sasuke demanded.

"You always are here on Tuesdays."

"Well, you sure do know a lot about me." Sasuke's voice was sharp. But then he sighed. "Do you need anything?"

"Don't keep on thinking about it," Naruto murmured consolingly. "It's over. It's all in the past now."

"Now, now, we should be celebrating, right?" Sasuke piped up cheerfully. "Naruto and Tenten, finally!"

"Heh." Naruto blushed and shrugged sheepishly. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Come on, let's get your girl something nice to wear! She's too boyish, I think. But, then again, you would know just how feminine she is, right?" Sasuke chortled.

Naruto's face tinted slightly. "Ok, I get it," he snapped. "What do I buy her?"

"Well, you've got dresses, jeans, mini-skirts, tank tops…" Sasuke went on to list all the items of clothing that women could possibly own.

Naruto grimaced. "What else can people think up?"

"…there's peach pink, coral pink, soft pink, fuchsia…"

Naruto slipped away before he could notice.

"Excuse me." The bespectacled saleslady peered from behind the skirt rack. "Hi, I need to buy something for my…my…my girlfriend," Naruto whispered secretively.

The lady nodded knowingly. "All right. It's the season for skirts and the sort. Buy her high-heels or nice shoes – there are some on the discount shelf over there." The lady pointed in the specified direction. Naruto thanked her and ambled around.

"In season, huh?" Naruto fingered the blue lace on a blouse and smiled. "Sure."

As soon as he had left the mall with a shopping bag in hand, two swift hands caught Naruto's arms and shoved him to a shadowy corner of the building.

"Uzumaki." A voice hissed and grated with obvious distaste. "Uzumaki. What did you do with Tenten last week?"

"What?" Naruto asked, slightly dazed.

"Tell me. Tenten!! What the hell did you do with her?" Fingers curled around Naruto's shoulders and shook him aggressively until he felt slightly giddy.

"N-Neji? Is that you?" Naruto slurred.

"Tell me. TELL ME!!"

What is he doing? Why –

Then it clicked. Naruto's mind whirred to life. He grabbed Neji's shirt and glared at him with all the hatred he could collect in his shaky state of mind.

"You want to know what I did? Hmm, Neji? You want to know what I did?" he growled. Naruto's hands trembled with rage. A ferocious aura hung about him, threatening to smash every bone in Neji's face. "I fucked her. And you know what? I fucked her so hard that you could never touch her again!!"

At this precise moment Neji's fists crashed against Naruto's skull. The impact sent Naruto reeling backwards. He slid to the ground, blood steadily trickling down his forehead. Naruto angrily scoffed at the injury and stood up, swaying ever so slightly.

Neji brought his arm up for the finishing blow. Then his eyes, burning with intensity and wrath, cooled to an icy frost.

"We'll see about that." He smirked and, shoving his hands into his pockets, strolled away.

It was a warning.

Naruto couldn't care any less. He dusted his shirt off and walked out into the sun. His head throbbed painfully. The passerby around him was fuzzy and blurred like a camera out of focus, but he could catch the familiar glimpse of a duck's backside.

"Sasuke?" he said dizzily.

"Naruto! What the hell happened? Naruto? Naruto – you're bleeding! Oh my - NARUTO!!"

Naruto woke on a couch with a pounding headache and a package of ice on his forehead.

Tenten came rushing in with a bowl of soup in her hands. She stooped over and kissed his cheeks, his nose, his mouth. "Oh, Naruto…are you okay?"

"Never been better," he grunted. He looked around. "Where the hell am I?"

"In my house." Sasuke entered the room with a dramatic sweep of his hands. He seized Tenten and pulled her close. "And with your girlfriend." He blew her a kiss.

Tenten attacked him with a torrent of fierce punches. "Don't you – touch – ever – I'm – going – kill – you –"

"Tenten. Tenten…" Naruto tapped her shoulder. "Don't murder him. Yet."

Sasuke groaned as Tenten proceeded to trample on him. "Naruto!! Help me!!"

"Learn how to live with the violent female." Naruto grinned.

Tenten paused, allowing Sasuke mere seconds to scamper away. "I don't need your sexism right now," she snapped.

Naruto's hands slid around her waist. He nuzzled her neck. "I'm sorry," he purred. The electric blue in his eyes left her knees wobbly. "You forgive me, don't you?"

"Yes," she whispered. She gasped softly as his lips slid downwards and his hands moved up her back. "S-stop it. Not here. Stop it!"

Naruto stared at her, confused, as he was shoved to the side. "Are you pushing me away?"

Tenten looked away shamefacedly, her eyes stinging with tears.

What bothered Naruto was that she didn't respond.

"Naruto! Tenten!" Sasuke bounced in cheerily. He had the faint impression of an uncomfortable eavesdropper. "You want lunch? I'm cooking rice right now!"

"That would be great." Naruto smiled awkwardly. "Thanks, Sasuke."

The table was silent for the whole meal. A nearby clock tick, tick, ticked impatiently. Sasuke's eyes swiveled to Naruto, then to Tenten, then to Naruto again.

"W-well!" Sasuke began with a twitching smile. "I was thinking that we could – "

"The walls."

"D-did you say anything, Naruto?"

"The walls need painting."

"Oh. Of course…they need painting." He looked up at the ceiling. "We obviously need to splash paint…all over the glossed wood."

Naruto squinted at him. "Didn't you say that you lived in a graveyard? That you lived in a place stained with your family's blood?"

Sasuke winced. "Ok. I did say that."

"Isn't a time for a change? You know, it's not your fault. What's done is done," Naruto said firmly.

"And you would know, right? You would understand when and where change should occur," Sasuke said with an acidic smile.

"I don't suppose that you are implying that I don't understand what life alone is like," Naruto replied coldly.

"The hell you understand!!" Sasuke shot up and slammed the table.

"What do I understand? TELL ME WHAT I UNDERSTAND!!" Naruto screamed and stood up as well.

Both quickly glanced at Tenten, who silently stared at the steady stream of water flowing from the faucet. They both sat down and crossed their arms, looking away in shame.

"I may not know that much about death and family," Naruto finally said, "but I know who to blame when it comes to this."

Sasuke let out a sigh. "Oh, just drop it, Naruto."

"But killing Itachi wasn't your fault!" Naruto burst out.

Sasuke gripped the table. "I – told – you – to – drop – it," he said through clenched teeth.

Naruto suddenly stood up. He grabbed Sasuke's wrist and marched him to the bathroom. He locked the door behind him and glared at him.

"You wanted revenge. You got me and Sakura all worried over it, you left us for that bastard, Orochimaru, and once we found you, you left all over again to go play hide-and-seek with that damn brother of yours!" Naruto furiously slapped his face with an impact that made a sharp crack resound in the tiled room. "You wanted revenge!! And you got it!" Slap. "Are you happy?" Slap. "ARE YOU HAPPY?!"

"Wait," Sasuke croaked, covering his face with his arms. "Not Itachi's kunai." Sasuke limped over to the lopsided knife that hung from a nail on the bathroom wall. He carefully straightened and polished it with his sleeve, as if it were a prized piece of finely crafted porcelain.

Naruto felt his heart tug as he watched this wretched person, worn away from years of guilt and loneliness, lovingly finger the only possession of the person he could never love.

"Sasuke, Sasuke…what is wrong with you?" Naruto crumbled to the ground, a mess of granite and eroding details.

He yelled, but it didn't mean anything.

He cried, but tears never came out.

And he loved, he loved his best friend, the dear brother he was in his own heart.

Sasuke sat down next to him. "I was messed up. I had problems…I had dreams. Even though Itachi left, Itachi was never gone. Itachi was always there, laughing from the heap of dead bodies he managed to pile up. I couldn't run away from Itachi. Itachi, Itachi, Itachi. It warped my mind to the point where I was irreversibly obsessed with it."

Naruto shivered. He imagined a murderer in every alleyway, every street, waiting for the right moment to pounce on him.

"I could have found a friend to help me, to sleep next to me whenever Itachi was smiling at me from the corner of my bedroom. I could have done so many things to limit the extent of my childish imagination. But I didn't. I was too angry and too scared to do anything. I thought that I could retain the dignity of the Uchiha bloodline by coping with things alone."

"Goddammit, Sasuke! You're so cocky." Naruto shook his head. "You think you can do everything by yourself."

"I thought I was the biggest and the baddest, didn't I?" Sasuke laughed humorlessly. "I found Itachi, I drove a single kunai into his heart, and he was gone. Gone, and what more? And, as blood spilled from his chest, do you know what he told me?" Sasuke turned to Naruto.

"Fuck you?" Naruto guessed.

"No. 'Well done, Sasuke,' and he smiled. Then it was all over. Isn't it strange how one second of regret can overrule years of hatred?" Sasuke's eyes were distant. "I couldn't believe how quickly I forgave my brother for everything."

"Did you cry?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke looked at him. "What do you think?"

"That's a yes."

"Obviously." Sasuke rolled his eyes and smacked Naruto on the forehead.

"So now what? You didn't have to stop fighting completely!"

"I was done fighting. Anything that involved hurting anyone else was something I couldn't bear to do. Do you see how badly this ended up? As soon as Itachi left this world, I swore to myself that I would do something, anything, to bring happiness in everyone's life."

"So you opened up a flower shop?" Naruto looked at him skeptically.

"Flowers, as crappy of an idea as it may seem, can help a lover, a friend, or someone who just is sick of the world and everything else. And besides, I'm making a huge profit from it." Sasuke grinned, and Naruto had to sit on his hands to stop from strangling him.

"S-so everything turned out okay," Naruto said, struggling to maintain patience.

"Yeah, I guess it's all right now. But I wonder…Naruto, do you think that Itachi would be angry at me for giving up after all those years of training?"

"Well…" Naruto began to speak, but then reconsidered. "You know what, Sasuke? I would have told you that he would have stuck by you no matter what, but I'll tell you the truth. He would have been mad as hell."

"Hn." Sasuke grunted. But he looked up at Itachi's kunai, a faint smile playing at his lips. "Well, then." He then tugged at Naruto's sleeve and said, "By the way, Naruto, you were talking about painting. I kind of see what you mean. This damn house is way too depressing."

"Can I suggest a color?"

"Ok."

"Orange."

"No. I like blue."

"Orange."

"Blue."

"Blue is too 'depressing'! I want orange."

"Orange is nauseating."

"How about orange and blue stripes?"

"No, blue."

"Sasuke…"

In the end, Sasuke and Naruto sanctioned the painting of blue-and-orange stripes. However, Tenten had the nerve to remark that Sasuke had perfect lines and Naruto was all over the place.

Being the typical competitive rascal, Naruto jealously splashed orange all over Sasuke's "perfect lines".

Sasuke then got ticked off and rubbed blue paint all over the orange to create a nasty sunburned effect.

Naruto was even more enraged and dipped his hand into the orange paint can, smearing crude pictures over the splashed wall.

As he laughed insanely, Sasuke dipped his own hands in the blue paint and rubbed it all over Naruto's favorite sweatshirt.

Naruto went into hysterics and punted five of the paint cans into the wall, creating an overall nasty mess of browned blue and burnt orange.

In turn, Sasuke nearly fainted at the sight of his precious, ancient, sabotaged, Uchiha estate and shrieked uncontrollably at the already panic-stricken Naruto.

Tenten summed it up by dumping both cans of blue and orange paint over their head and kicking them repeatedly.

"Are you freaking done?" Tenten placed her hands on her hips and frowned.

"One question," Sasuke gasped.

"What?" she snapped.

"Are you PMS-ing? Because I understa-"

"Oh, shove it, Uchiha."

Naruto began to laugh. "That's what I told him once. Do you remember that, Sasuke?"

Sasuke grinned. "Yeah."

"Ohhh, I get it. You looooooove Sakura-kun…"

"Shut up! SHUT UP! THAT'S NOT IT!!"

"No problem, Naruto. I'll go buy the candy for you and give it to Sakura…without mentioning your name, of course."

"Shove it, Uchiha."

But that was when Naruto had fallen for Sakura.

"Come on, Tenten. Let's go home." Naruto kissed Tenten's forehead and picked up his ruined sweatshirt. "Sorry, Sasuke. We'll clean up your house tomorrow."

"No, it's okay. I like it this way." Sasuke smiled. "Now there's something a little cheery about the Uchiha household."

"Suit yourself," Naruto said and waved goodbye. He then threw Tenten around his neck. "Now YOU'RE coming to my house."

"Naruto, I don't think this is a good idea." Tenten cut off Naruto's exploring hands from the access of her jeans.

"Why?" Naruto was slightly taken aback. "Is there something wrong?"

"My parents…" Tenten fumbled around for an excuse. "My parents are going to be worried. They're going to ask questions."

"You've stayed at my house nearly every day this week." Naruto grabbed at her unbuttoned shirt. "Come on, it's Friday. Just relax."

Naruto reached further and further into Tenten's jeans, murmuring in her ear, coaxing her to stay. He pleaded with his allure, demanded with his petrifying eyes.

Tenten had enough.

"Stop it. Get off of me!" Tenten covered the expanse of bare skin with her shirt and lashed out her legs. Naruto looked hurt.

It's time to tell him the truth.

"Naruto…" Tenten was finally able to look into those pupils that accented the surrounding sheath of azure. "Neji confessed to me today."

Naruto was silent for a moment. "What did you say?"

He already knew the answer.

And on that empty stage, in those empty spotlights, the drumbeats battle for dominance, the curtain rises, and the audience roars –

The characters are exposed.