The first actual chapter. Enjoy.
"What are you?"
"Your friend."
After a couple of weeks, things had appeared to be normal again.
Uzumaki loved to have Sakura-chan around. He had to admit, a few years ago, much more than only a few words she'd said he has taken to heart. At times, he even wondered whether she appreciated having him as company at all. It was alright; Sakura-chan had her own way of presenting their friendship, and he understood. He understood completely.
These past few weeks, however, had been so much different for him. Perhaps it was because Uchiha had returned.
He's never had such a case of nausea-at-morn until he'd been seeing Uchiha. Uzumaki still believed that he wasn't there, he wasn't solid. Perhaps he was a doppelganger; Perhaps he was dead as his own breath when he slept. He'd wave good mornings to Sakura-chan, and though she would reply with her saccharine smiles, Uchiha- that damned survivor- would saunter from around the corner. Always. And although he would say good morning in just the same way he had done to Sakura-chan, there was a tone hid behind the casualty, the tone that would always hiss 'I contemn you still.'
Did Uzumaki despise him?
Maybe he just felt betrayed. And he decided to end his thoughts right there, because he knew this shouldn't be the case, shouldn't be the reason. No, there has to be something about it, about his voice, that made him squeamish.
"It's freezing," He began, finding that the three teenagers were too quiet. It had always been quiet, actually. But the thought of words eased his stomach slightly. He wondered why the three of them were still walking beside one another, as if they were one group. Had the three really reunited for good?
Haruno stretched slightly, shuddering in reply. Uzumaki watched her back arch and her arms tremble. "I agree." She placed her palms against her lower back, arching even more.
"Un."
Uchiha's reply had been a particularly quiet one, as always, but somehow that had been the reply that caused Uzumaki's stomach to churn even more than it had before. Why was his reply always the uneasing?
The three ate together- even if things weren't the same as before.
It wasn't exactly Uchiha's habit, to eat so much. But somehow, the tangled ramen noodles dangling on his chopsticks, bathed with dark miso broth, filled a specific void he had been feeling the past few days. A small quirk of his lip, and perhaps he's been switching personalities with Uzumaki. The blond teenager, he could see from behind Haruno, hadn't even touched his own bowl, although he had remembered that by this time, he should be ready for his second bowl.
"Daijobu desu ka,¹" Uchiha raised an eyebrow idly. "Last time I checked, you had a rather extensive appetite."
Haruno chuckled slightly. "It's true, Naruto-kun. Is something wrong?"
Uzumaki didn't reply to either of their statements, for Uchiha's voice, for the umpteenth time of the day, made him positively sick to the stomach. It made him wonder whether Uchiha had bathed his vocal chords with a chemical poison. Breaking off his chopsticks, he simply shook his head for a moment, gazed down at his mauve-tinted knuckles and muttered.
"Itadakimasu.²"
"Look, Sasuke-kun. It's raining."
"Un."
"Here, I've an umbrella. Why don't I walk you and Naruto-kun home?"
Haruno was between them. She was linking each of their arms, hands clutched to the umbrella.
Uchiha realized that Haruno was the link between him and Uzumaki. That if she wasn't there, they wouldn't have even looked at one another. And something about that, that realization. It bothered him a little. He wasn't sure whether Uzumaki was ready to accept him, and the feeling of becoming the third wheel was odd. But wasn't that how Uzumaki had felt in the first place, when they were young and stupid? Haruno used to treat Uzumaki as a patrician would a meager dinner.
She wasn't treating him this way now, was she?
Time was medicine. It healed wounds, as well as faults. Perhaps, Uzumaki needed a medicine of greater potency.
Uchiha noticed that the first stop had been his residence. Rather convenient, since their heights were so different than it used to be. Both he and Uzumaki needed to lean down to fit their heads within the brim of the umbrella.
His goodbye had been a nod, in which Haruno had replied by doing the same. And when the umbrella-shielded pair had begun to walk away, Uzumaki's head turned, hesitantly, as if to say something.
'We should... talk.'
Did they both mouth the same words in sync?
¹/ Are you alright?
²/ Along the lines of- "Thanks for the meal, I am going to eat now."