The Subway Diaries ( 3/?)
By; Owai
Rated; R
Summary; The city is cold and empty, and the subway runs through it. In a world where the city lights blind you to everything real, Uchiha Sasuke tries to impress an empire, and meets a boy running from his own. AU.

---

Only when the front doors had been locked and all the customers fed and pleased did Neji allow himself to lean against the a wall in the back room and run his mind over each second he had spent in the presence of the Uchiha family.

The analysis did very little to calm his nerves. Itachi had not only recognized him, but called him by name. Though the other had never harbored any ill-will toward Neji as far as he had known, there was no great trust between them. Neji had no illusions that, were it to benefit him otherwise, Itachi would keep his presence in Konoha silent. It was much the same for Fugaku, though Neji had the feeling that the man was more concerned with his own family than the state of others, if he even recognized the opportunity before him at all.

And then there was Sasuke.

Sasuke, who Neji had not even recognized for an Uchiha. It came to him now, the faceless shadow that had lurked in his mind and matched to Sasuke's own on the subway that day—he was, after all, a softer copy of his brother, whom Neji had known only briefly but well enough. Unable to place those dark eyes and the shape of that face, Neji had taken caution's word and disappeared from the car upon their first sighting of one another. And again, at the apartment where Neji was still having trouble settling almost three weeks later. Now it was difficult to place why he had not recognized Sasuke immediately; even mannerisms that seemed so fluid on the younger had been mirrored in his older brother.

This was all provided that Itachi shared his knowledge with his family, but Neji would have to be more observant. Things like this were going to get him killed, or worse.

"Neji."

The voice did not startle him; he had known that the floor manager had been standing behind him for the last several minutes, and had ignored it. He needed as many breaks as he could get, and if allowing the man that gave him pay raises to stare at his ass got him there, so be it. Such an allowance didn't stop the pride from sinking into Neji's shoulders though, as he turned around. The knowing gaze he offered was almost lethal.

"Take the trash out and shut down all the lights..." the manager's gaze faltered slightly, his cheeks softening with a slight blush, "then you can go home."

No, Neji thought, I can never go home.

But he did as the manager had asked, waiting for the older man to leave before he went from trash can to trash can, rolling his immaculate white sleeves and collecting bags. The kitchen area was clean and silvery, each utensil resting in its proper place. The work stations had been cleaned and ordered for the night, and though the restaurant was high-end, nice and the kind of place his family would have enjoyed, Neji knew he did not belong there. Risking a job that befitted his training, however, was far too dangerous at this point. Even with the precautions he had taken.

With a heavy push with his back and shoulder blades, Neji exited the back room and stepped into the darkening night, plastic rustling with each strained movement. The air was cool but heavy, thick with humidity and Neji's own thoughts as he turned and carefully surveyed the corners of the building, the turn of the alley and the shadows created by phantoms of his own ghosts. Nothing moved in the still night, but Neji was more than aware of i presence /I .

His muscles stiffened and the bags fell sharply to the concrete.

"Come out." He said, fingers coming to a point all too naturally. He marveled at how seamlessly his mind picked up the hint of an intruder with no visual or auditory cues. It was simply instinct, being threatened and preparing for that.

"Tch." Sasuke said, coming around the corner of the restaurant, hands in his pockets. Still in his dinner clothing, he looked relaxed and vindictive, knowing but still curious. Neji felt the urge to take a cautionary step back, but refrained. Whatever violence Sasuke could offer him would be easily countered. "A bit on edge, aren't you?"

Neji let out a soft snort, derisive and prompt before he turned to put the bags into the dumpster. When he turned back, Sasuke was several steps closer.

"What do you want, Uchiha."

Sasuke's smirk, ever-present, grew. "I didn't know Hyuuga came this far west." He said, closing the space between them. Neji's gaze remained even, unsurprised.

"But you've done well pretending not to be Hyuuga...haven't you." Sasuke continued upon stopping, close—so close it took but a small movement for him to flick the back of his fingers against the bandages wrapped around Neji's forehead. Too swift for the other to draw his hand away, Neji caught those fingers between his own, a stilling white-fisted grip that didn't seem to faze Sasuke at all.

"I'm not pretending anything." Neji responded.

"Then you wouldn't happen to know anything about the Hyuuga prodigy, would you?" Sasuke continued smoothly, "I heard that he's haunted."

Neji felt his blood flow a little hotter, a little thicker. Speculation about the Hyuuga hardly ever hit close to the mark, but that didn't make it any less cruel—especially when it brushed it.

"A Hyuuga myth. There is no Hyuuga prodigy." Neji forced his voice to be light. There was no such thing as ghosts, people said, but they often misunderstood the word. Haunting required little more than memory.

Sasuke drew closer. Again, in a mimicry of their confrontation almost a week ago, he pressed his cheek to Neji's, hot in the cool night. "I don't believe any of it." He whispered before drawing back slightly and offering Neji a calculated look, thoroughly smug.

Neji smirked and released Sasuke's hand. With pleasure, he saw the fingers twitch out of the corner of his eye, but did not draw back to view the full effect. Lips also by Sasuke's ear, Neji had the benefit of exuding something to the same effect that the Uchiha had. Danger and knowledge enough to pull the other out of a past he didn't understand and into a world that he was too drunk on. Taunting.

"I didn't know that the Uchiha had a second son."

The punch was not wholly unexpected; Sasuke had seemed to pause beforehand as if contemplating and Neji had, after all, been the server for the Uchiha table all evening. He had more than noticed the tension that seemed to sit there, and with Itachi's status as a prodigy and Neji's own understanding of inadequacy and jealousy, it was not hard to notice where it came from. He admitted to himself, as Sasuke's fist connected with his jaw, that he had provoked it intentionally. He wanted to see Sasuke angry, yet that did not explain why he had failed to protect himself.

It hurt, though, and even with Sasuke suddenly slamming him into the wall and wrinkling his work shirt, Neji noticed very little aside from the sharp pain in his jaw. "Does Naruto know?"

Neji merely smirked, refusing to give anything away though he couldn't stop berating himself for this slip. For this obviousness. Chin lifted in denial, but Sasuke wasn't giving up so easily.

"I'd want to know if I were harboring a yakuza. I said, does Naruto know?" With that, Sasuke gave a yank

at Neji's shirt. The sound of popping buttons and taut material shifted through the air and Neji thought—Well, there goes another day's cash before he even registered that Sasuke was poking around his abdomen, looking for something in the half-dark.

"What are you doing." Neji stated blankly, noting with a sense of pride the way Sasuke's hands seemed to press harder, to rake against his skin with irritation at just how calm his words sounded. "You've already located my incrimination." Sasuke's eyes snapped to the bandages around Neji's forehead. Before Neji could tell what was happening, the other had fisted his hand in Neji's hair and yanked the Hyuuga's head back, exposing his neck to the wan moonlight that was peeking over the nearest building.

"I want to see it."

Neji's fingers closed once again around Sasuke's, loosening the grip on his hair just enough so he could stare level with the other. Or as level as he could, what with Sasuke being several centimeters taller. "No." He answered. "You seem smart. You'd do best to mind your own business, like Naruto."

When Sasuke pressed against him hard and Neji could feel the brick behind him cool and rough in the night, he was still not surprised. When Sasuke's lips pressed against his, though, hot and moist and more than minutely violent, his body could not compensate for the brain's lack of precognition. He sat in stunned unresponsiveness until heat rushed to the site of contact and flared up his spinal column. At that point, responding was the only option.

And he did, because Sasuke was pressed hot against him and kissing was always the easiest way to forget. He thought that maybe this hadn't been what he wanted, but any kind of violence would do, and the kiss was hardly gentle.

He met Sasuke push for push, bite for bite until his lips were swollen and used and Sasuke had moved on to the rapidly forming bruise on Neji's jaw. Soft lips pressed and then the swirl of a rough tongue, almost painful until Sasuke moved on, the path laid clean for him by his previous actions. Neji felt each and every prick and bite of teeth against skin, and when his eyes slipped closed it was only to keep at bay the thick growl that lay trembling behind his parted lips.

Neji could feel Sasuke's breaths rapid and heavy on his skin, a contrast to the cool April air. His lips were hot, and he kissed hungrily, marking as he saw fit. When Sasuke finally paused just below Neji's navel, Neji looked down to find his hands in the Uchiha's hair, and Sasuke's eyes a firestorm of red.

"I can make it my business." Sasuke said, and Neji could see the way he panted, and Neji's own stomach tightened with something akin to want.

But instead of voicing that or acting on it, Neji merely smirked, an action that wanted to be half-hearted but which Neji forced into full blossom. He pushed a midnight strand of hair off of Sasuke's forehead and felt the other's fingers digging into his hips, Sasuke crouching on the ground before him.

"You can't." Neji said simply.

He watched the violence cloud Sasuke's eyes again, no longer clear. And this time he did not expect it when Sasuke slammed him into the wall, causing Neji's head to crack against the brick painfully and his shoulders to scratch beneath his shirt. Sasuke's lips, now hot and demanding and a little bit homicidal, descended upon his once more only to perch a short, crushing moment and then move to suction at his neck.

Neji let out a grunt of protest as he felt Sasuke's teeth mark him, but did little more than glare when the Uchiha pulled away; he looked ruffled and angry, yet still somehow satisfied.

"The fuck I can't."

Well past irritated now, Neji shouldered past him and back into the restaurant, ignoring the pleased look on Sasuke's face as he did so. The door slamming behind him was a mocking jeer.

---

"It's a love bite. Tenten—! Did you hear? Can you see, with this little camera?"

"It's not."

"It is! I've seen the movies. Oh, how wonderful. I knew that crossing the central line would open multitudes of opportunities for you, Neji! This is more than you gaining freedom, you're gaining life! Your spirit—"

A groan. "Stop it, Lee. Tenten, we'll call you back after we've finished."

"Goodbye, Tenten!"

Neji handed the near antique camera-phone back to Lee with a look of disgust and shoved one hand in his jean pocket, the other curling possessively around the strap of his bag. It was early—early enough that there hadn't been a peep out of Naruto's room when Neji had left, and the sunlight was just beginning to flicker through the cracks of the buildings. It was the first time he'd seen Lee in weeks, and Neji was already exhausted by him.

"Hmm, so this girl you're seeing, does she have a name?" Lee asked, looking contemplative. There was undoubtedly enough for the two of them to catch up on, but Neji didn't like talking and Lee didn't much like thinking in straight lines, or prioritizing. It was something that Neji had gotten used to over the years.

"Lee. I'm not seeing anyone."

"Neji!" Lee looked horrified, "You mean to tell me that—that you got this mark of sin during a random encounter?!"

Neji let out a terse sigh and rolled his eyes. What had once been a "love bite" had been downsized to the depths of hell in a matter of seconds, and he really wasn't willing to deal with the aftershocks of such a paradigm shift. He was still having a hard time thinking about the whole thing without getting extremely irritated, and Lee's continual accusations weren't helping things.

"Hn." He said, neither admitting nor denying. Lee seemed to dissolve into a puddle of despair as he contemplated the possibilities.

After a few minutes of silence (which weren't really silent, if one counted Lee's distressed muttering and the occasional masculine whimper) Neji looked over at his companion and forced himself to keep his gaze on what he had always considered to be something of an eyesore. That was, Lee's outfit in combination with his ridiculous bowl cut.

"Where is this place."

"Oh—oh, just a few more minutes away," Lee said cheerfully, having either forgotten about the damnation of Neji's eternal soul, or at least having decided to revisit the problem at a later date. "Gai-sensei was rather disappointed that he couldn't rent the dojo out for us."

"It couldn't be under his name." Neji said, thinking that he'd explained this to Lee before. "It's too far west. Someone would be suspicious and look into it."

Lee nodded, looking uncomfortable. They continued, an odd awkwardness filling the silent air between them—awkward, simply because such silence was unusual. Lee often filled it in some way or another.

Eventually, Neji lost track of where the conversation should or should not be going, and his thoughts wandered. Naruto had fussed rather adamantly about the bruise on Neji's jaw the night before, and had demanded over the course of several hours to know exactly how he'd gotten it. Apparently the blonde had a rather short-term memory, but when Neji had finally settled on a glare after being slowly worn down by the constant nagging, Naruto seemed to have gotten the point. He didn't ask again, only muttered something about having Sakura come over the next afternoon to look at it.

But Neji was hardly thinking about the bruise; it looked worse than it was simply because his skin was so pale, and he'd had far worse injuries before. It was Sasuke's insistence on being a pain in the ass that really made Neji think, and the fact that he knew the Uchiha was only butting in so that he could lord something over his brother only served to make Neji more irritated. He couldn't be sure if Sasuke was playing a game, or if he really ought to be worried about being discovered. Not that he wasn't already.

They had stopped at a tall, classy-looking building somewhere downtown, and Neji took in the surroundings with a quick glance before focusing his eyes on Lee.

"This is it!" Lee said unnecessarily.

Inside, it looked more like an upscale hotel than a martial arts center—the man at the front desk was dressed in a pantsuit that made Neji feel like he was going to visit his uncle in one of his many offices. He took a walk around the lobby while Lee signed in, having caught how the attendant looked at him. His eyes, while not well-known in this part of the city, did stand out. And he had already encountered one of his uncle's holdings.

Their dojo was traditional and private, yet mainstreamed. Neji looked around for the souji materials and found none; a sign near the changing room explained that the dojo was cleaned before and after every session. Frowning at it, Neji pulled his bag over his shoulder and went to change, leaving Lee (who seemed to have been dressed in proper attire since birth) to wind bandages and grip tape around his arms and hands.

When he came back it was to find Lee twisted into an impossible position, looking more than ready to have another go at handing Neji his own ass. It had been too long, and Neji felt the corners of his mouth twitch upward.

Lee allowed him to don bandages and stretch properly, but was on his feet the moment Neji stood.

"Ready, Neji? I have improved! You will find me more difficult to beat this time."

Neji said nothing, merely extended his hand and widened his stance, beckoning Lee to come.

He did, like a charging freight train. Neji counted the thuds of Lee's bare feet on the tatami matting and twisted to meet the kick that had been aimed for his head. Lee of course, wasted no time in delivering another, this time to the abdominal region which Neji also blocked, sending the green-clad martial artist back a foot and a half.

"I see you've improved as well! But have you learned anything new?"

Lee always fought like he was instructing, and it amused Neji, who had always bested him. When Lee came at him this time, Neji grabbed his fist and twisted Lee's body in front of him, two fingers deadening a bulky muscle in the other man's lower-back. It affected Lee's landing as Neji pushed him away.

"Ah—clearly you have found an equal with whom to spar, Neji! If I can judge anything by that bruise of yours." Lee said from the floor, rubbing his back though he knew it would be useless to clear the muscle of the searing pain.

Neji's step barely faltered, but his body went through a period of remembrance at that. Muscles tightening against the harsh press of stone and a foreign body, skin fluttering under the heat and brush of lips and tongue. Neji blinked and felt his face flush in a response that had not occurred the night before—and it was only the sharp landing of a kick to his shoulder that brought him back.

Lee had seen his distraction and taken the opportunity, and now they hit and parried blow for blow, neither one forcing the other back or allowing him forth. Lee's speed was unmatched, but Neji did not have to match it to beat it. The blows he had to disengage or else face their bone-crushing power. Fingers were much easier to maneuver into openings than fists or feet, but even so, they carried on for nearly an hour before finally calling it quits.

Mopping a towel over his forehead, Lee panted a few feet away from Neji, who loosened bandages and periodically rubbed his shoulder.

"You should come back, Neji. Tenten misses you, and the Hyu—"

"Don't." Neji cut in quickly. He had scanned the room for cameras and found none, but one never knew who was listening.

"How can you live like this?" Lee finally said after a moment. He sounded sad, and the expression on Neji's face softened a little.

"It's not living. Not yet." He replied, standing seamlessly and walking into the changing room. Lee followed.

"When will it be? When won't you have to look over your shoulder, or into mirrors just to see if there's someone behind you?"

"Lee. Stop it." Neji said, pausing to pull his shirt off. There was a bruise on his shoulder indeed, dark and purple and painful. He dabbed ointment and wrapped the site, listening to Lee say nothing at all.

The silence said enough. Lee had never understood exactly why Neji had left, and Neji had stressed telling him at all. The final decision had come down to what was safest—leaving without informing Lee would only invite him as a tracker, and Neji knew that Lee would have no problems going to Neji's family in innocence for help. He couldn't risk that, but Neji had to wonder if it had really been the best choice.

When he finished, he joined Lee on a bench facing the lockers. They stretched out in rows like a thousand metal cages, all streamlined and efficient. Lee kicked at one of the open doors lightly, and they watched it sway to and fro for a moment without speaking.

"They're looking for you." Lee said finally.

"I know."

"It's not public, though. No posters or pictures or ads in the paper, like I thought." He was solemn, and Neji found himself wanting to twist that note out of Lee's voice—a near shocking discovery.

"That just makes it more dangerous. I suppose they must be using the underground." It was a harrowing thought, but Neji was not hopeful enough to guess that his family had stopped their search so soon. It also proved that they weren't desperate yet. It suggested that perhaps they'd found clues to Neji's whereabouts, and he struggled with the idea of moving elsewhere.

"Neji, be careful please!" Lee shouted, his voice too loud in the empty room as he sat forward and looked at Neji with his wide, pleading eyes. "Tenten will kill me if anything happens to you! You know she's waiting for you to come back and marry her."

Neji smirked because it wasn't true, but he nodded once, simply, and got up to leave.

"I'll see you next weekend, Neji! And maybe I can meet your roommate and your girlfriend!" Lee grinned and Neji sighed, and they left the building together before parting.

---

"Tadaima."

The house seemed empty when Sasuke entered, and the scrape of his shoes was loud enough to add meaning to that emptiness: a dull slip as he pulled them off, a sound that still served a purpose.

His mother was home, of course. He could sense her presence like a warmth in the house---and she was always home these, though her job as a housewife seemed lackluster now that both her children had more or less stumbled onto their own feet. Sasuke could feel that in her every time he returned here, as if his maturation was a dry and barren womb that had stolen some kind of light from her face, from her life. It made something in him ache just a little to know that as one of her greatest triumphs, he was constantly letting her down with the hardness he had gained from continual defeat at the hands of his brother.

Sasuke found her in the living room; she was seated on a pillow on the tatami beneath a lamp and a table where she penned some letter or another. She was always writing, either to him or Itachi, or relatives that they saw infrequently. She looked up when he entered.

"Okaeri, Sasuke-kun..." His mother said with a smile---a deep one. One that lit her eyes and rounded her cheeks. She had a smudge of ink on her right hand, and Sasuke noticed immediately. His eyes could hardly stand to stay on her face for long.

"Sit down," Mikoto continued, patting a space right beside her as she always did. She liked him close, and Sasuke didn't mind giving her what she wanted. He pulled a pillow up and settled himself behind the table, idly reading the note that she was writing---to his father, of all people. Like she didn't see him every night. Like they didn't live in the same house.

"You must be busy, hmm?" She mused, finally putting the pen down and looking up at him. "You haven't been around the house much lately. Dinner was the first we've seen of you since your semester started..." Her fingers were in his hair, assessing, pulling in that mother's way. He could hear her thoughts already. You need a haircut and Sasuke silently agreed.

"Aa." He said aloud.

"We've already gotten your first report from the university. You're doing very well." She pinched the flesh between his shoulder and his neck (checking that he was eating right, presumably), and Sasuke twitched in the way only she could make him do. "Both my boys are so successful."

"The first more than the last."

He couldn't help but say it.

But his mother's dark eyes flickered, one eyebrow raised in near-amusement. She had never let him pity himself, but he was no longer a child that she could assure. She couldn't say You are the greatest boy in the world and have him believe it. Over the years, her tactics had changed.

"Maa," Mikoto said, voice falsely heavy, "My son is so wise, he knows what goes on behind closed doors and won't even believe what his mother tells him anymore..."

"Okaa-san," Sasuke replied with exasperation, unable to stop the hint of a smile from escaping onto his lips as he flopped back onto the tatami. He heard his mother giggle as she leaned back on her hands to look at him. In that moment he was her favorite companion, and Sasuke couldn't help but show the gratitude on his face.

Her expression calmed and she looked at him genuinely. "You shouldn't let him get to you like that, ne, Sasuke-kun." Mikoto said softly, "Your brother. You aren't little boys anymore that have to compete to gain your father's attention."

Sasuke's smile faded and he felt his heart stumble a bit in his chest. He directed his eyes to the ceiling and looked at the wooden beams that supported the roof, though he had memorized them thoroughly several years before. His mother didn't understand what went on between the men in this household---or maybe she understood it far too well, and just saw above it. Either way, Sasuke knew that it hurt her to see how things had turned out, when she had only ever raised them to love. Itachi was as cold and ice and Sasuke was a flame that burned everything in his path. There was no way for it to have turned out any differently.

"I've never had his attention." Sasuke said, speaking of his father. He was still the second son.

"You have it more than you think." A pause, "Your father's a quiet, prideful man and is very proud of you, Sasuke."

Her tone quieted any response Sasuke may have concocted, and he let out a soft sigh and was silent. Mikoto dropped down beside him a moment later, and he counted her breaths and watched the ceiling.

"Okaa-san." Sasuke said several minutes later, feeling rather than seeing her head turn toward him. He was thinking of dinner the weekend before and how she had sighed knowingly when Itachi had mentioned Neji's name.

How he thought about Neji so often was vexing him. The other was like an itch he couldn't help but scratch.

"Hmm?"

"When we were at your restaurant last weekend, do you remember the boy that served us?"

She didn't answer for a long time, but Sasuke doubted she was looking back in her memory, trying to remember. She was just choosing what answer to give him, and how to present it. "Yes. The Hyuuga boy, I remember him."

"What do you know. ...About them."

"Oh, only the same kinds of things that people know about us." She said, but he caught the lie of omission and she knew it. So she continued, "It's just a..." Sasuke could hear her struggling with her compassion, and it worried him. "It's not so much a family as a system. When I grew up on the other side, I heard a lot of myths. More than over here. It's hard to tell what's real and what's not, but they're not like us."

"That doesn't say much." Sasuke insisted.

"You should ask your friend, Sasuke." Mikoto said, sitting up and looking bothered. "If he has bandages around his forehead and is on this side of the central line, he's already risking enough---maybe he'll tell you."

"He's not my friend," Sasuke interjected as he watched his mother stand, thinking about what she'd said. She stretched and smiled, her expression clearing.

"Aa, you just like him," she teased. Sasuke felt his cheeks redden and he cursed her power over him as he rolled over and buried his face in a pillow. She had sufficiently reduced him to the age of four again, and he found himself fervently denying her accusation in his mind. Yet there was no reason to deny it to himself, was there? He'd punched the bastard in the face.

And practically ravished him.

"'Kaa-san---" Sasuke groaned into the pillow, but she was already in the kitchen preparing their supper.

He stayed for dinner and left laden with food. Some for Naruto, some for Sakura, and some for Neji.

His mother really didn't get it at all.

---

"Look you bastard, if you weren't such a hotheaded freak, we could go to the club this weekend---"

"Half that fight was you, dumbass. Just because I'm the one that ended up with the bruise doesn't make it my fault."

Ino groaned and ran a hand through her long blond hair. Kiba and Naruto were facing each other across the table, and the way the sun was shining made them look a little bit like prepubescent gods. Or at least overgrown monkeys, what with the way they both were growling at one another. Really, this was hardly the place. It was supposed to be a nice cafe.

"Why don't we just do something else, compadres?"

Ino was learning Spanish, and she thought it made her sound intelligent, dropping bits and pieces into the conversation. Naruto and Kiba merely looked at her dumbly, but then people naturally got that look from the pair.

"Right." Kiba said after a long moment's pause. "Like what."

Naruto blinked at her, and Ino suddenly remembered why she was the brains of this project. She preened.

"Well, obviously it would have to be something genius, involving ridiculous amounts of alcohol, yet easy enough for you two idiots to pull off without having to call a brain surgeon in."

"Well?" Kiba pressed. Naruto seemed too dumbfounded to even bother managing a reply, Ino noticed as she sipped her fruit juice. Actually, the blonde seemed rather distracted by something. But whatever, he had ADD anyway---no news there.

"I have the perfect idea, boys." Ino said, arching an eyebrow chillingly.

---

They'd found each other at the library of all places, late-week. It was not a place either of them found conducive to much else than quiet study, and thus the not-argument that had been riding the air between them upon each meeting was left somewhere in the vicinity of the front door. Sasuke had been pleased to see that the bruise on Neji's cheekbone had faded, but the mark on his neck had not. Neji had been pleased that Sasuke seemed content at staring at him until the library closed as opposed to asking any more unwarranted questions.

They were both annoyed when Naruto met them at the door and demanded, quite loudly, that they go out for ramen.

---

"Drunk strip poker." Naruto said with obvious triumph.

"Who thought of that?" Shikamaru asked disdainfully. Naruto had not been fooled by Shikamaru's apparent loss of consciousness on the couch, but was still quite pleased when Ino whacked him on the head with her purse.

"I did, asshole."

"Hmph." Shikamaru said, rolling over to mutter into the cushions. "That's too much work, taking clothing off. I think I'll just take a nap."

Naruto sighed and watched Ino take off her coat, not bothering to mention that it would probably be a better idea for her to keep it i on /i if they really were going to go through with this whole thing. They were all supposed to meet at nine, but Sakura had phoned to say she'd be getting off work late, and Sasuke had grunted at the plan in general, so Naruto wasn't even sure that he would show up at all.

Neji had been in his room for the last five hours. Naruto thought.

Kiba came in from the kitchen with a drink in his hand and knocked it back in one seamless motion, looking halfway toward drunk already. "Can we start already?"

"Looks like someone's already started." Ino muttered. She'd pushed Shikamaru's legs off of the couch and had settled herself within the sunken cushions, legs crossed and looking for all the world as if she'd had better places to be than Naruto's trashy apartment.

Well, his apartment wasn't trashy. Actually it had gotten much nicer since Neji had moved in, thank-you-very-much, Miss Snooty Pants. Naruto had even cleaned up his socks and put his dirty dishes in the sink. Granted, there was the ever-present bowl of ramen broth sitting on the kitchen table, but that was written in on Naruto's birth certificate and had clearly been inscribed into his DNA. People should just learn to deal with it.

"We have to wait for Sakura-chan," Naruto whined with his best puppy-dog face. Kiba, as a dog-lover, merely scowled.

The door, seemingly hearing Naruto's prayers, opened in that precise second to reveal not only Sakura but Sasuke as well. Sakura looked tired and unhappy, and Sasuke looked like a dick, so it seemed that all was well with the world. Or at least normal. Naruto let out a whoop and turned around to bang wildly on Neji's door. The stuck-up bastard couldn't get away from him this time, not when the party was in his own living room.

Five minutes later, Neji had been fully roused and was staring at Naruto with a blank look of supreme superiority.

"So you're getting drunk before even bothering to play this game of yours," he said, tone sounding unamused, "and calling it drunk strip poker."

Naruto nodded along with Kiba. Ino seemed to have lost interest in taking the fall for her idea, and was poking Shikamaru's foot through one of the holes in his socks.

"Why don't you take a shot with every article of clothing you lose. Or two shots, if you insist on being ridiculous."

Something about the way Neji said it made Naruto want to smack him, but he'd be damned if it wasn't a good idea. Hell, half the time when he was drunk he couldn't get his clothes off period, and that would defeat the entire purpose of the game. It was agreed. Fifths of the hard stuff were brought out with ice and a couple of bottles of water, and they all sat on Naruto's oddly immaculate floor (Neji must have been cleaning again) and began. Except Shikamaru, who slept.

Eleven hands in, Naruto was down to his boxers and he was holding his cards face-side out.

"Stop trying to see my cards, bastards." He slurred to no one in particular.

"Che. We don't have to try moron, you're holding your cards backwards and you haven't got shit."

Naruto turned his cards around and so he was. He almost felt grateful to Sasuke for pointing it out, and then remembered that the asshole had insulted him, and squinted angrily in his general direction. He'd lost count of how many times he'd lost, but he was pretty sure he'd just taken his seventh shot. Which was odd, since they'd played some great amount of hands and he was taking two shots for each loss and seven was an odd number (had he been sneaking? He couldn't remember). But whatever, he could work out the math in the morning. Or just ask Neji, as he seemed to be an intelligent one.

"Neji---Neji how drunk I am?" He asked the circle. Sakura handed him a bottle of water and took the tequila away.

"Neji's not here. He went to bed half an hour ago." She explained politely. Naruto petted her face. She was so nice. Nice and pink and pretty. And wearing no shirt. And her bra was pink, too!

"It matches," Naruto muttered, putting his arms around her and promptly passing out into breasts that weren't so much skin as they were bra.

---

"You could have knocked." Neji said tightly, though he didn't bother looking up from the low table he had stationed himself at in the corner of the room. Sasuke smirked and closed the door behind him, leaning against the door frame with crossed arms.

Neji's room was nice---nicer than Naruto's at least, a room which Sasuke'd had the misfortune to be exposed to on more than one occasion. He had very few belongings; a futon was laid out neatly in the corner, there was a bookshelf set against the wall (where most of Neji's possessions seemed to sit, though each spine of every book was neatly organized by author's name), and a desk, also neat, rested quietly by the door. Sasuke had almost expected there to be more to it.

"Naruto passed out fifteen minutes ago." He said.

"Good for him." Neji responded, "I'm sure that was his intention."

"And yours? To get him drunk enough that he didn't notice you'd left?"

"Hardly. What would you know about my motivations, Uchiha."

Sasuke moved further into the room, coming to stand behind Neji's carefully seated figure. He looked down and identified immediately the articles of shouji: brush, paper, weight. The characters that Neji had written on the page were old and flowing, a haiku that Sasuke recognized, and once read nearly made him laugh aloud.

"You have a sense of humor?" He sneered.

"Not that I'm aware of."

Neji cleaned the brush and put away his supplies, movements so methodical and effortless that Sasuke found it difficult not to be entranced by them. When he was finished, he turned to Sasuke and looked up at him patiently. His eyes were like small moons in the half-lit room. Behind the closed door, Sasuke could hear Kiba and Ino laughing.

"Did you want something."

Sasuke noted his word choice and smirked. Moving carefully, he dropped to his knees next to Neji so that they were only several centimeters apart.

"I asked my mother about you." He said after he'd leaned close. Neji didn't so much as bat an eyelash, and Sasuke took that as an invitation---not that any other movement from Neji would have suggested anything else.

"That meddlesome, are you."

"Next time I'll ask Itachi." Sasuke was close enough to feel the sudden heat radiate off of Neji's body at those words, and his lips curled softly. Neji's head turned in anger, but their lips brushed and Sasuke was the one left feeling triumphant again.

"What the hell do you wa---"

Sasuke sealed his lips against Neji's, pressed him down into the carpet in one swift movement. He was buzzed but hardly drunk, and the only things that were missing were his socks. Neji hadn't taken a single shot; his poker face had been like a block of granite, and Sasuke could taste mint toothpaste as he swiped his tongue against Neji's front teeth.

He was surprised (but not) when he felt Neji respond. His kiss was angry before it became soft and subtle, making Sasuke's hair rise in all the right places, nothing like the unresponsive irritation that he'd received a week before. He felt cool, slim fingers slip into his hair and soothe his scalp, warm from the alcohol that had filtered into his bloodstream. Then they parted and looked at each other, breaths coming deeper than they should have for bodies at rest.

Sasuke wasn't sure who moved first, he was only aware that they were pressed against each other again, hard this time and hot. Neji's hands were up his shirt, fingernails raking softly against his chest while Sasuke was trying valiantly to find the button of Neji's pants. He couldn't, be it either through the half-haze of drunknenness or their positions, but he did manage to pull Neji's shirt up, to run his tongue up the other's abdomen and watch him arch and pant softly. He wanted to hear Neji moan, but wondered if that cool facade would allow it. Either way, it didn't much matter. The look on Neji's face was almost enough to make him hard.

"Get it now, Hyuuga?" Sasuke grunted, smirking as Neji pulled him down and rolled his hips up against Sasuke's. He moaned and breathed hotly against Neji's ear, pressing down and rubbing against the other solidly, making Neji gasp and clutch at him.

"That's what I tho---"

The door opened and the room was blasted with the grating sound of drunken laughter and half-formed words. Kiba wavered uncertainly at the door, his gaze clearly not focused on the two of them, but looking somewhere past them.

"We're going back to Shikamaru's so...Naruto's asleep or something. I think he puked. Bye."

Sasuke heard Neji groan, and it was with half-expressed want and fully infused irritation. Instead of getting up like he knew he should, however, Sasuke pressed his lips against Neji's throat and nipped there, one hand rubbing at the half-hard bulge in Neji's pants before the Hyuuga could slip away from him completely.

Neji was unkempt and ruffled and sexy, and Sasuke rolled onto his back and cursed Naruto and Kiba and everything that he could think to curse as Neji disappeared into the living room.

Naruto hadn't thrown up, but he had sufficiently ruined Sasuke's night. Neji, who apparently couldn't leave a mess (or was either very minutely obsessive compulsive) looked after Naruto and cleaned up the entire living room, smirking at Sasuke's disdainful looks every time he came to the bedroom door in varying degrees of undress. Eventually Sasuke just ended up falling asleep on Neji's futon, his face buried in a pillow that smelled very much like Neji.

When he awoke in the morning, it was to a sound of very persistent knocking on the front door, and to Neji pulling on his shoes and disappearing out the bedroom window. It took him a moment to register what he'd seen, and it was only when his senses cleared that he heard the very distinct sound of voices coming from the living room.

He opened the bedroom door to find Naruto standing with two straight-backed men, their eyes white like snow.

---

Author's Note;
1) Neji's haiku:

Without flowing wine
How to enjoy lovely
Cherry blossoms.

Anonymous.