"Here." A smug voice jolted from his lunchtime stupor. "Proof." A lunchbox was unceremoniously shoved under his nose for Sasuke to examine.
"Hmmm... so you did make the stir-fry..." Sasuke murmured, poking the sludge of vegetables with his own chopsticks. "...but not very well."
Naruto scowled as he drew back the lunch from Sasuke's poking sticks and flopped unceremoniously onto the grass next to him. "Hey, it tastes okay." He sniffed. "Besides, it's not like you have to eat it!"
Sasuke sniggered. "Thank god. I don't like carrots at the best of times, let alone when they're burned to a crisp."
Naruto scooped up a blackened carrot with his chopsticks and shoved it into his mouth. "Tastes just fine to me!" He declared.
Sasuke wrinkled his nose. "Maybe if you haven't had a real stir-fry before." he said.
Naruto shrugged. "At least I didn't burn the rice." He said smugly. "I'm good at cooking that." He showed Sasuke the fluffy white layer next to his leftover sludge in his lunchbox, and Sasuke had to grudgingly admit that the rice was cooked to perfection.
"So what are you eating that's sooooo much better than my stir-fry?" Naruto wanted to know, glaring down at Sasuke's bento. Sasuke gave him a look, but tilted the lunchbox so that he could see the perfect arrangement of rice and healthy side dishes that filled his bento.
"Did your brother make that?" Naruto wanted to know. There was a hint of admiration in his voice, and Sasuke didn't miss the dismayed look that Naruto shot back at his own lunch as soon as he saw Sasuke's.
"Kinda." Sasuke shrugged. "It's a group effort in the mornings."
"How?"
"The eight of us kids that go to the Academy all need lunches. The seven that are still at the civilian school have school lunches, but Itachi makes them all sit down and have a proper breakfast while us older kids can get away with grabbing some bread as we race around trying to find everything we need for school. The twins and Eri are the only easy ones, they sleep in until all of us leave, then Itachi feeds them with whatever is left. Then he drops them off at daycare and heads to the Hokage building to do his day job as a ninja." Sasuke told Naruto. "My point is: the eight lunch boxes get made in the mornings by us older kids raiding the breakfast table and then stuffing it into our own lunch boxes. Itachi and Haruna cooked most of the stuff I'm eating, but I had to pack it myself. See? Group effort."
Naruto rolled his eyes. "But you didn't cook any of it." He pointed out. "I think I'm still winning here. I cooked and packed my own lunch."
"Packing your lunch was probably less dangerous than packing mine." Sasuke grumbled. "I got elbowed in the stomach by two four-year-olds when I tried to take the last rolled omelette off the plate this morning."
Naruto had the nerve to laugh in his face at that. "Now I know how to beat you in a fight!" He crowed in delight. "I just have to enlist the help of your two four-year-old cousins!"
"They'd never join your side." Sasuke retorted. "They like me too much."But Naruto just kept laughing, and Sasuke couldn't help but see the funny side too. He may not have laughed that loudly, but the quiet chuckles were still there.
Sasuke watched in interest as Naruto turned his attention back to his rather sorry looking lunch and began wolfing down the food like there was no tomorrow. Sasuke looked back down at his own lunch, suddenly feeling the urge to do something completely and utterly crazy.
"Hey Naruto..."
"Hngh?" Naruto tried to swallow his bulging mouth full of food (quite possibly his own tongue as well) and answer Sasuke at the same time. Sasuke took his weird gargling noises as acknowledgement and carried on.
"Have you ever tried a tomato before?"
What the hell, he had two of them anyway...
"Right, so I want you to split up into twos and-" Whatever Iruka-sensei wanted to say next was lost to the general chaos of chattering children. Immediately, kids started pairing off. Choji shifted in his seat so he angled more towards Shikamaru, as if it wasn't already obvious that the two would partner each other. The two quietest kids in the class, Hinata and Shino, caught each other's eyes across the room and mutually decided it would be better if they saved themselves the trouble of being ignored by everyone else by just partnering up. Kiba asked loudly if Akamaru counted as his partner, or did he have to take on a human companion as well? In the midst of all this Sasuke found himself wedged between a budding argument between a group of girls. At the forefront of this argument were Ino and Sakura, spitting insults as they tried to stare each other down. And what was the cause of this vicious argument? Why, who was to have the honour of partnering up with Sasuke, of course.
Sasuke eyed the girls warily, dreading finding out who was going to win. Either way he'd be forced into spending the rest of the lesson sitting next to a smug possessive girl who would flutter her eyelashes at him one minute and glower across the room at her ex-best-friend the next, so he didn't really care who won. He watched them squabble for a few moments before something occurred to him. Technically, they were fighting over him, but really, they were just fighting amongst themselves. They were too busy keeping an eye on what their rivals in love were doing to pay any attention to him. So, naturally, Sasuke took advantage of this. He stood up quietly, exited his row of seats and turned his back on the girls. They didn't even notice.
"Hey." Sasuke slumped down in the empty seat next to Naruto, who hadn't moved an inch since Iruka-sensei had ordered them all to pair up. There were twenty seven in their class so inevitably someone always ended up partnered to the teacher in these exercises. Sasuke had noted that it was always Naruto who was left partner-less every time. It had reached the point where he didn't even try to find a partner anymore.
"Hey." Naruto said glancing over at him. "Shouldn't you be down there so the girls can rip you limb from limb in their game of tug-of-war?"
Sasuke shrugged. "Nah. Didn't feel like it."
"Okay."
"You do know that I'm not going back down there to partner up with one of those vultures, right?"
"I figured."
"So it's cool if we're partners?"
"Yup."
"Okay then."
Sasuke observed Naruto from out of the corner of his eye. He'd noticed, now that he was spending more and more time with Naruto, that he wasn't hyperactive twenty four hours a day, even if it sure felt like it at times. Naruto had quiet moments like everyone else, it's just nobody noticed him having these moments because it was like he became completely invisible for the duration of them. Naruto was so loud and in your face, the moment he shut up it was like muting the television set and turning your back on it: he became forgettable. Sasuke found that even though he didn't mind it when Naruto went into quiet mode, there was always something undeniably sad that hung around in the air whenever he was engulfed by a moment like that. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that every time that Sasuke had seen Naruto in quiet mode it was always in a situation just after he'd been snubbed or put down, ignored or downright harassed? Sasuke didn't really get it. But somewhere along the line he'd decided to watch Naruto during moments like these. And somewhere else along the line he'd also developed a protective urge during these moments, glaring his killer Uchiha death stare at anyone who looked like they were getting close enough to kick him while he was down.
The was a duel cry of victory and defeat from the girls standing just in front of the seat Sasuke had abandoned. Ino had won, and Sakura had lost. Ino whirled around, flicking her growing blonde ponytail over her shoulder to smile sweetly at her 'prize'... only to discover that he wasn't there.
"Hurry up and pair off girls!" Iruka-sensei said irritably. "We don't have all day." He nodded at the seats filled with paired up children behind them. Ino and Sakura both eagerly scoured the classroom to search for where Sasuke had disappeared off to. Sasuke smirked at them both from the back of the classroom in his seat next to Naruto. It was obvious by the way that the two boys had angled slightly to face each other that the two had paired off. Ino and Sakura looked satisfactorily shocked and annoyed. Sasuke's work here was done.
"I can't tell who they're more pissed off at: you or me." Naruto noted dryly. "Betcha they're going to beat me up after class."
"See it as a chance to improve your taijutsu." Sasuke waved a hand at him. "More importantly, I don't have to spend the lesson with a lovestruck monkey-girl clinging to my arm."
"Ugh. Sounds rough." Naruto shuddered. "Do you think all girls are born crazy, or is there some place that they all learn?"
Sasuke considered the sulky females of their class, now sullenly picking partners out of who was left. For some reason it amused him greatly that Ino and Sakura, sworn enemies only two minutes ago, had now tossed aside their differences to form a partnership themselves. "I think they're born crazy." he said firmly. "There's no way that someone could learn to act that idiotically."
Naruto nodded his agreement, stifling a laugh as the last of the kids settled down and Iruka-sensei was standing in front of them once again, telling them what they were supposed to be doing. Sasuke let himself relax as Naruto's laughter slipped out a little louder, earning a scowl from their teacher mid-lecture. It was always a relief to see Naruto come back to his normal self at the end of these quiet moments. Sasuke often thought that he rather preferred his friend with his cheerful personality as opposed to his quiet one.
"Nii-san?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think I could have a friend over for dinner?"
Itachi whipped around to stare at him in surprise, falling out of his combat stance. "A friend?" he asked curiously. "Who?"
Sasuke was torn between embarrassment and pride as he also stepped out of his fighting stance and gave his brother a small, abashed grin. "His name's Naruto." He said quietly. "He's in my class. Can I invite him over for dinner?"
His older brother's face was unreadable as he considered Sasuke's question. "Interesting." He said quietly. Sasuke wondered what was so interesting, but sensed that he wouldn't get a straight answer from Itachi if he asked, so instead he waited patiently to see if his brother would give permission for his new friend to come over. "When, in theory, would Naruto be joining us for dinner?"
Sasuke shrugged. His brother hadn't said no, but he hadn't said yes yet either. What was it about Naruto that had the adults acting so jumpy all the time? Even his brother wasn't immune to the mysteriousness that surrounded his friend. "I haven't asked him yet." He told Itachi. "But I wanted to see if he could come over this Saturday. We're going to work on homework together. I figured that it would be better to do it at our house instead of his apartment. His place is really small."
Itachi nodded at him firmly. "Okay then. Naruto can come over." Itachi flashed him a rare smile as he resettled himself into a fighting stance, beckoning Sasuke to attack. "You'll have to tell me what kind of food he likes though, so I can make it on Saturday."
Sasuke grinned as he fell back into his own fighting stance, poised on the balls of his feet and waiting for a good moment to strike. "Don't worry, Naruto eats anything." He told his brother, wrinkling up his nose a little. "...and I mean everything." he sniffed. "I've had to break him out of some really bad habits." He tried not to think about the two-week old rice ball that Naruto had taken a bite out of in front of him only last week. The other boy had found it in his school bag and decided to eat it seeing as he'd forgotten his lunch. It was a miracle Naruto had lived to be eight years old considering how often he seemed to poison himself.
Itachi chuckled. "Well, it's nice to see that you are looking out for your friend." He said mildly. "Now, are you going to fight me, or is our spar over for today?"
Sasuke rolled his eyes but chose not to retort. Instead he threw hesitation to the wind and launched himself at his brother with a snarl of determination. The spar was far from over yet!
"And don't stop to talk to the little kids." Sasuke told Naruto seriously as the rounded the corner. "They're devious time-wasters. If you give them an inch they'll take a mile and before you know it you'll be giving them all piggy back rides around the garden when you only meant to say hi."
Naruto waved a hand at him, grinning from ear to ear. "Yeah, yeah." He replied. "I got it."
"And watch out for the potted plants in the living room, Hikari hates anyone touching them without permission. They were her mother's plants."
"Gotcha."
"No pranks." Sasuke said firmly. "Lots of them are twitchy. They won't take it well."
"You already told me." Naruto rolled his eyes. "'sides, I'm not so rude to start setting up pranks in someone else's house when they invited me over for dinner." Naruto sniffed. "I do have standards."
"And make sure you don't-"
"Sasuke, seriously, you've been telling me the same stuff for the past three days. I think I can do this." Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a control freak?"
"I... I... I'm not a control freak!" Sasuke spluttered as they walked up to the dark blue front door with the red and white Uchiha fan painted in the centre. Naruto just laughed as Sasuke scowled at him and pushed the door open.
"I'm home!" Sasuke yelled as he stomped inside. Naruto followed behind, sniggering as he muttered a small greeting, apologising for intruding into the house.
Luckily the hallway was deserted, but Sasuke knew it was only a matter of time before someone realised that he had brought a friend home, and they would be bombarded with attention. He stripped off his sandals quickly and tossed them into his shoe basket.
"You can put your shoes in there too." he nodded at Naruto and then the box. "If you leave them lying around they're bound to get lost."
Naruto nodded and hastily tugged off his own sandals, shoving them into the basket on top of Sasuke's. Then he straightened up and shoved his hands into his pockets, looking at Sasuke expectantly.
Sasuke bit his lip. He was tempted just to sneak past everyone and take Naruto upstairs to his room to do their homework. It would save a lot of time and energy. He didn't really want to answer a thousand and one questions about who Naruto was and what he was doing in their house. But unfortunately, it would be rude to sneak off without properly introducing Naruto to his older brother. Itachi had given him permission to have Naruto over in the first place, he would probably want to meet him too.
"Come on." Sasuke said, turning to make his way down the hall. "I'll introduce you to Nii-san."
"Cool!"
His brother was, of course, in the kitchen. It was still felt rather funny and surprising every time that Sasuke found his brother in there; back before he could have counted on one hand the number of times that he had seen his brother in the kitchen. The kitchen always used to be his mother's domain, he hadn't even known that his brother knew how to cook until their first night together in the new house. He really should have guessed though; Itachi knew how to do everything.
Sasuke cleared his throat at the doorway to the kitchen, stopping the quiet conversation between Itachi and the two kids sitting at the kitchen table doing their homework. Chizue and Sora looked a little miffed that Sasuke was interrupting their homework quiz session, but Itachi didn't look bothered. He patted Sora on the head before he could open up his mouth and rudely demand that Sasuke quit bugging them in the blunt fashion of a six-year-old and nodded at Sasuke to go ahead with what he needed to say.
"Uh..." Sasuke glanced back into the hallway, where Naruto was hovering at his back, just out of sight from those in the kitchen. Sasuke stepped into the kitchen, allowing Naruto to follow in behind him. Chizue eyed the newcomer warily and Sora's mouth dropped open a little, like he couldn't believe his eyes. Itachi, as always, was unreadable. "Naruto, this is my Nii-san, Itachi Uchiha." Sasuke gestured at his brother. Itachi's mouth twitched into a small smile as he nodded at Naruto. "And that's Sora..." Sasuke pointed at the boy, who waved at Naruto, "... and Chizue." She nodded at Naruto, face guarded like she didn't know what to make of the intruder to their home yet. "They're my cousins."
"Hi." Naruto said, rather stupidly. Sasuke rolled his eyes. Naruto still wasn't very good at the whole 'social interactions' thing, and the thing that tripped him up the most seemed to be introductions. Sasuke was working on it with him, but there was something a little sad about an Uchiha having to be the social life coach of someone else, they tended to have their own social deficiencies to deal with.
"So... this is Naruto." Sasuke gestured towards his friend, completing the introduction, but leaving an awkward pause when Sasuke realised he didn't really know what else to say. "We'll be doing homework together upstairs, okay? Bye!" Before anyone could say anything else, Sasuke turned sharply and marched out of the kitchen, grabbing the back of Naruto's shirt to drag him along as he did so.
Sasuke dragged Naruto down the hallway as the kitchen behind them dissolved into not so subtle giggles. Sasuke felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment as he picked up on the very quiet chuckles of Itachi mixed in with Sora's snorts and Chizue's chiming laughter. A very confused Naruto was squirming in his grip as he staggered after him, wondering aloud what was going on and:
"...Are they laughing at us?" Naruto asked. "Why are they laughing at us?" He twisted, trying to get a look at Sasuke's face. "Hey, did I do something wrong? I was trying not to be weird, ya know..."
Sasuke sighed heavily, and let Naruto's shirt go so that he could walk properly. They had reached the stairs, and it was probably a bit dangerous to try and drag him up those.
"They weren't laughing at you, just at me." Sasuke sniffed and avoided Naruto's eyes.
"Huh?" Naruto blinked at him. "Why?"
Sasuke winced. "Well... I'm not exactly famous around here for being very social." Sasuke admitted. "Sora and Chizue were shocked that I'd actually invited someone over."
"That's funny?" Naruto's face screwed up. "I don't get it."
"Um... actually they're laughing because of how awkward I was introducing you, and then I added to the awkwardness by escaping the room as soon as I could."
"Ah." Naruto's face cleared up, to be replaced by his thinking face. He paused for a moment. "So what now?"
Sasuke nodded up the staircase. "Now we go up to my room and do our homework." he said. "That was the whole point of you coming over, remember?"
Naruto's face fell at the thought of doing book work. "Oh." He muttered. "Right."
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Come on." He nudged the boy towards the staircase. "I'll help you out. It'll be easy! Then we can practice shuriken throwing until dinner, deal?"
It doesn't take much to convince Naruto into doing something he didn't want to do, forget having to use the stick, the carrot worked every time. "Sweet!"
Sasuke began to climb the stairs, praying that they wouldn't bump into anyone else before dinner. The last thing that he needed was to go through another painfully awkward introduction.
"So the rumours are true."
The glare that the intruder got from Sasuke was truly one of the most frightening in the world. It screamed: Annoying! Bastard! Go away! and Nosy! all at once. Unfortunately Matsu was just as much Uchiha as Sasuke was, and those kinds of glares didn't work so well on him as they did others, so instead of running away with his tail between his legs (as Hideki had done half an hour ago) he just smirked at his younger cousin.
Sasuke straightened up from his throwing stance to glare more intensely at Matsu, but it didn't seem to work at all. "What rumours?" He asked sourly.
Matsu grinned wolfishly. "The whole house is buzzing that little Sasuke brought home a friend." he raised his eyebrows as he looked around Sasuke to Naruto, who had also straightened from his throwing stance to stare at the older boy curiously. "So I just had to come and see if it was true."
"I hate you sometimes." Sasuke muttered darkly, holstering the shuriken in his hand.
Matsu just kept grinning like a mad man and reached out to ruffle his hair before turning his attention to Naruto. "Hello." He said politely. "I'm Matsu Uchiha, another one of Sasuke's cousins." He curved his back slightly, giving Naruto a small bow in greeting.
Naruto floundered for a minute, taken by surprise by the show of impeccable manners, before bowing back hastily. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki." He mumbled. "It's nice to meet you."
"I know who you are." Matsu said slyly. "I think everyone in the Academy knows the dead last of Sasuke's class."
Sasuke turned to hiss at Matsu with anger as Naruto wilted in response to his careless comment. Sasuke felt appalled at the behaviour of his cousin. He hadn't thought that Matsu could possibly be so rude! Sure, Sasuke may call Naruto 'Dead Last' all the time, but that was different! It wasn't so much of a hateful taunt when Sasuke said it anymore, and he only really used it to spur Naruto on to try harder, reminding him that he had a long way to go before he'd ever be considered a true ninja. Sasuke vowed to take a leaf out of his new friend's book. Revenge would be swift, and something unpleasant would be going in either Matsu's bed, shoes or backpack tonight when the other boy wasn't looking.
"You're famous!" Matsu continued, seemingly ignoring the lasers that Sasuke was shooting out of his eyes at him. "Most of my class is still talking about the time that you filled all the teachers' desks with mud. That was awesome!"
Naruto frowned in confusion, but didn't look so put out at the earlier insult anymore. He certainly perked up at the mention of his pranks.
"Personally, I still want to know how you managed to get the drop on Takumi-Sensei." Matsu confessed. "He's never slipped up once that I've ever seen, apart from the time that you managed to set up a tripwire that coated him in silly string. How did you manage to distract him before he noticed the wire?"
Naruto's grin was wide and mischievous now. "Takumi-Sensei is colour blind." He told Matsu. "It's not that bad, but it means that he over compensates whenever he sees movement out of the corner of his eyes in case he misses something because he can't distinguish the colours. I flashed a mirror from a tree right in his side vision when he existed the classroom so he didn't notice the tripwire until it was too late." Naruto swelled with pride.
Matsu just blinked at him, truly surprised. "Really? Takumi-Sensei is colour blind?" From the sound of it, Sasuke came to the conclusion that the fact was something that the man's own students hadn't known, yet Naruto did...
"Yup." Naruto said. "I heard a couple of the teachers talking about it when they were discussing who had to cover for his class when they learn scavenging, seeing as he can't teach them how to distinguish between different plants very well."
"Hmmm..." Matsu looked thoughtful at this, clearly impressed with Naruto. "You're really good at information gathering, aren't you? Somehow, that's surprising..."
Naruto was startled at the compliment, and stammered something about how he really wasn't that good, just lucky. Sasuke eyed his friend thoughtfully though. He'd thought for ages that Naruto's pranks were only useful for letting off steam and fooling around. Certainly something that got Naruto into trouble all the time would not prove useful later on. Clearly he had to rethink things. Naruto's pranks were always meticulously planned and ingeniously creative. Now that Sasuke thought about it from a shinobi perspective, it was not such a big leap to transfer any of Naruto's pranking skills into a lethal trapping ones. That's not to mention the fact that Naruto observed his targets for days before pulling off a strike if he didn't know them already. While the information gathering was for childish purposes, there was no denying the fact that Naruto was good at snooping around and finding out his enemies weaknesses. In fact, if Sasuke ever wanted to stage a hostile takeover of the Academy, Naruto would probably have all the information that he would ever need to do so.
Interesting.
Sasuke stowed that information away for later. Conquering the Academy could always be an option if he ever got really bored in class.
"Why is that surprising, Matsu?" Sasuke smirked. "You know, he's not even the Dead Last of our class anymore. He beat Kiba in the last test by the skin of his teeth. Now he's just the almost Dead Last."
Naruto scowled at Sasuke and gave him a playful shove. "Smug bastard." he muttered darkly at Sasuke. "Just because you got top of the class again..."
Sasuke's smirk spread wider. "Of course I got top again." He said smugly. "I'm just that good." He shoved Naruto back: eye for an eye style.
Matsu resigned himself to being forgotten as the shoves turned into punches, and the punches turned into kicks, and the kicks turned into... was that a headbutt? The two boys had dissolved into an impromptu taijutsu spar right there in the Uchiha's makeshift shuriken range. Without a word he backed away and left the two of them to it. He never considered trying to break it up. Even from that short conversation, Matsu had figured out that Sasuke and Naruto had one of those strange types of friendships that would have to be expressed in fist fights every now and then. To be honest, it wasn't all that strange a type of friendship inside a shinobi village.
Matsu shrugged as he let himself back into the house, tuning out the noise of the spar behind him. He had been worried about Sasuke. The kid that he'd started looking at as a little brother recently seemed to be really struggling with the task that Itachi-nii-san had given them. Matsu had been worried that Sasuke might give up and decide not to try to make friends anymore. It looked like he'd been worrying over nothing. Sasuke may have taken his time picking up a friend, but by the sound of the rather enthusiastic fight outside, it seemed that he'd picked well.
Matsu smothered a laugh as he heard Sasuke howl something about how biting was against the rules of a friendly spar, then completely lost it as Naruto declared back that this wasn't a friendly spar: this was WAR!
Oh yeah, that friend's defiantly a keeper Sasuke, if only for the entertainment value for the rest of the us. Matsu thought with a chuckle.
"I have to tell Itachi-nii-san about this." He laughed.
Dinner was surprisingly... normal...
It helped that by the time dinner actually came around, most of the extended family had been introduced to Naruto. Chizue and Sora had immediately spread the news that Sasuke had brought a friend over the minute that Sasuke and Naruto had left the kitchen, and Sasuke had resigned himself pretty quickly to the fact that a new curious Uchiha child was going to be interrupting his time with Naruto every ten minutes or so. By the time that they actually got to dinner time, Naruto had also met Haruna, Hikari, and Arata (Being part of the 'older kids' crowd meant that they were brazen enough to just barge into his room to inspect the guest the minute they heard), Matsu and Hideki (who came out to interrupt the shuriken practice) Yoshi and Samuru (who lingered outside his bedroom door for ages before they plucked up the courage to knock) and Ichiro, Eri and the twins (They ambushed them just as they came in from shuriken practice with a thousand and one questions). Sasuke tried not to dwell too much on the fact that the twins seemed a little too interested in Naruto's stories about all the 'awesome' pranks he'd pulled off. Hopefully Matsu would be able to curb any new troublemaking habits that his little brothers picked up from his friend.
At least introductions to the rest of the family didn't take too long. Sasuke just breezed into the dining room, waved a hand at Naruto, explained who he was and lazily pointed out all of the kids that Naruto hadn't had the pleasure of meeting yet. He wasn't too put out by the glazed look that came over Naruto's face as he got assaulted with yet another four or five names to remember. He didn't really expect Naruto to remember all of the names of his cousins. Sometimes even Itachi couldn't keep everyone straight, accidentally stumbling through several wrong names before eventually grasping the one that he actually wanted to call out. The less said about mixing up the twins the better. Sasuke suspected that even Matsu had a hard time keeping those two straight. There was a reason that everyone just referred to them as 'the twins'.
Apart from being overwhelmed by the sheer number of cousins that he had been introduced to, Naruto managed to stumble his way through the dinner pretty well. There had been a moment when Itachi had brought out a dish of stir-fry that had caused a little teasing on the part of Sasuke and a bit of groaning from Naruto, which got them a few weird looks from his family. However Naruto seemed to fit in with the boisterous atmosphere of the massive family dinner well, even though Sasuke knew for a fact that he had never shared a meal with any group larger than just him and perhaps one other person before.
The most interesting part of the night, however, had to be when Itachi had sent all of the little kids off to bed, and all those aged seven and up hung out together in the dining room drinking tea. If the youngest of them hadn't been seven, and the oldest of them fourteen, Sasuke would have felt like he'd been included in a get-together usually reserved for grown-ups. As it was, it was almost like they were playing at being adults, Itachi was the only one that could pull off the role with any sort of credibility, and even he had moments where it seemed surreal that he was in charge.
It was after the little kids had been unceremoniously shoved into bed and threatened upon fear of death to stay there that Naruto opened his big mouth and asked the question that Sasuke had been waiting on all night.
"So how come you've got so many cousins, Sasuke?" Naruto's tone was bright, but his smile wilted a little at how quiet the room became after he spoke.
Sasuke realised he should have told Naruto a little more about his current living arrangements before inviting him over. He opened his mouth to give Naruto a quick explanation and a promise to give him more details later, but Haruna beat him to it.
"We're not really Sasuke's cousins, Naruto." She said quietly, taking a sip of her tea. "It's just easier to say that we are rather than going into the complicated details of how we're all actually related."
Naruto's face furrowed into confusion again. Sasuke should have seen this coming. Naruto had a very limited experience of family. He never spoke about his deceased parents, and Sasuke had started to suspect that he might not even know who they were. If Naruto barely understood the concept of parents, how could he possibly wrap his head around the idea of siblings and grandparents, let alone Aunts, Uncles, cousins and so on. The fact that one person could have so many relations was probably mind boggling to Naruto.
"For example, I think Itachi-nii-san and Sasuke are something like my..." Haruna bit her lip, thinking it over. "...fourth cousins?" She looked to Itachi for confirmation.
Itachi only shrugged. "I think we might be third cousins once removed, actually." He said.
Naruto just looked at the two of them blankly. "What does that mean?"
"Fourth cousins mean that we share a great, great, great grandparent." Itachi said. "But as I said, I think we're third cousins, once removed, so I think my great, great grandparents were your great, great, great grandparents, if I remember correctly."
It was not hard to see that Naruto's brain had crashed and burned. Sasuke waved a hand in front of his face to see if he was still functional. He blinked a couple of times, then slowly came back to reality. "No wonder you guys just stick to cousins." He shuddered. "It'd be a nightmare trying to remember all that."
"Eri and I are real first cousins." Akane piped up from her seat next to Hideki. "But I don't really know how I'm related to everyone else. It doesn't really matter anyway. We're all Uchiha, but there were so many of us that most of us aren't that closely related."
"I think the closest relative to Itachi-Nii-san and Sasuke is Yoshi." Hikari mused. "Isn't her father your first cousin?"
Sasuke frowned. "Really?"
Itachi was already nodding. "Yoshi is Mother's nephew's daughter." He said. "I remember mother dragging the two of us to his wedding, it was when you were a baby Sasuke, you wouldn't remember." Suddenly Itachi smirked. "Mother had to leave the ceremony early because you wouldn't stop crying."
Everyone but Sasuke sniggered at this embarrassing little anecdote that Itachi had managed to dig up. Naruto suddenly looked very mischievous, which made Sasuke think that perhaps Naruto had discovered a new goal in life: get Itachi to reveal as many embarrassing stories about Sasuke as possible for use as black mail. Sasuke swore right then and there that he would do his absolute best to keep Naruto and Itachi far, far, far away from one another. The consequences of not doing so didn't bear thinking about.
"So does that mean that Yoshi is second in line to be head of the family after Sasuke?" Arata wondered out loud. "Theoretically speaking, of course."
Itachi fixed him with a look. "Yoshi is five." He said bluntly. "I think you guys have better options should Sasuke and I leave you alone." His face darkened. "Not that either of us plan on leaving."
"I know that." Arata waved a hand at him. "I was just curious."
Itachi shrugged. "Actually, should something happen to me, my current will states that Haruna would be the legal guardian for all of you." He admitted.
Haruna nearly dropped her tea.
"Sasuke would be the head of the family, but not until he reached genin rank." Itachi went on. "If Sasuke died before achieving that rank, or elected not to become a ninja, Haruna would assume the role of matriarch of the clan."
There was a long moment of silence as everyone contemplated this fact. Then Sasuke spluttered. "Like I'd ever chose not to be a ninja!" he scoffed.
Itachi shrugged again and went back to his tea. "Stranger things have happened." he said wryly.
"Why does Sasuke need to be a ninja in order to be head of the family?" Naruto asked.
"Because we're a ninja clan." Matsu told him. "The head of the clan can't be a civilian, it's forbidden by clan law."
"Oh."
"Anyway." Haruna clapped her hands. "You'd all better be super nice to me, because Itachi-nii-san has basically declared me second in command!"
Arata rolled his eyes at his older sister. "Yeah, yeah, whatever." He got a flick on the forehead for that.
From then on the conversation dissolved back into the silliness expected of a group of kids hanging out together. Sasuke tried to force his thoughts away from the preparations that his brother had made for the clan succession. Had he really made a will? It seemed so morbid, but Sasuke realised that it was probably one of the first things that Itachi had done when he had taken over the clan. He was a ninja after all. Even though he didn't take the high risk and difficult missions of the ANBU anymore, Itachi still ran A and B rank missions a lot. There was always a danger that he might not come home from one of them. Sasuke shoved the thought away and turned back to talking with Naruto and the rest of his cousins. Naruto was in the middle of explaining how he managed to glue an entire classroom full of furniture to the ceiling in one night for one of his pranks and Sasuke, for once, was really curious to know how he did it.
"Are you sure that you are alright to walk back to your apartment at this hour?" Itachi's eyes were sharp as they locked onto Naruto's. Naruto thought about brushing off the older boy's worries with his usual smile, but thought the better of it upon closer inspection of his face. Dimly, Naruto remembered that Sasuke had told him that his brother used to serve in ANBU. It was entirely likely that he had been one of his animal faced protectors last year. The old man always assigned him guards every time that October rolled around. He knew that the ANBU watched out for him all year round, he wasn't totally stupid. But during the last half of September and through the whole of October there was an official guard posted on him, keeping him safe in proper shifts, not just keeping an eye out for him every now and then. Naruto didn't know why the villagers grew colder towards him at this time of year, but he'd had enough scary experiences that he didn't question the Hokage worrying about him anymore. He accepted the babysitters without complaint.
"I'll be fine." He told Itachi quietly. "Someone will be watching."
Itachi nodded and turned his attention back to the hallway in time for Sasuke's arrival. Naruto and Itachi were standing in the entranceway. Naruto had left his homework up in Sasuke's room, and Itachi had told Sasuke to run up and get it for him so that Naruto wouldn't have to take his sandals off only to put them back on again to leave. Now Sasuke arrived and shoved the homework book into Naruto's hands, staring suspiciously at Itachi and Naruto like he could tell that the two of them had just finished a serious conversation of sorts.
"You okay?" He asked Naruto, peering into his face. "You look all... serious..."
Naruto shrugged and forced a grin onto his face. "I must be tired." He yawned pointedly. "I'll see you at school on Monday, 'kay?"
"We don't have school on Monday, stupid." Sasuke huffed. "It's the Kyuubi remembrance festival, remember?"
"Oh, right." Naruto felt the smile freeze on his face. "Ha ha. I forgot..."
"Typical." Sasuke rolled his eyes. "We're going together, right? Nii-san says that all us Uchihas have to go to the memorial service, but I can meet you after."
"Uh..." Naruto's heart thumped in his chest. He desperately wanted to say yes to Sasuke. It sounded like a dream come true to go to a festival with a friend. But the fact remained that he had made a promise to the old man. His promise came first.
"Sorry. But I'm not going to the festival." Naruto blurted. "I'll see you on Tuesday... Bye!" He turned and practically ran out of the Uchiha home, feeling a little horrible for running away.
As his feet pounded the pavement, he couldn't help but notice the two shinobi in masks that leapt from their hiding places around the Uchiha home and started ghosting along the rooftops, shadowing him on his way home. Most people pegged him as stupid, but there were a few things that Naruto was very good at. Spotting people following him was one of the few things he excelled at. Spotting ANBU following him was a piece of cake. Naruto put it down as a side effect of being guarded by ANBU his entire life. He was used to them and their procedures, so it was relatively easy to spot them when they were tailing him.
He wished he knew why the old man was so insistent that he be guarded by elite shinobi during October. He wished that he knew why he was in so much danger this time every year. For most of the year, the villagers ignored him. They kept their children away from him and they refused to serve him at shops. He got glared at a lot, but nothing that bad ever really happened. During October, that all changed. Suddenly people got a lot angrier at him. He avoided crowds during October because people were prone to shoving or tripping him if they thought they could get away with it. Occasionally, a few people would get violent. A drunk had nearly kicked down his apartment door two years ago before the ANBU came to his rescue. The Hokage had placed him in a new apartment building the next day. Last year he had been cornered by a delirious woman on his way home from school. She had rambled all sorts of crazy insults at him and shoved him into a wall. Her long fingernails left gouges up his arms before the ANBU once again intervened and sent her on her way. She didn't really hurt him, only frightened him. Naruto felt a bit stupid later that he had burst into tears when the ANBU came. He felt even stupider that they had taken him to the Hokage when he couldn't stop crying. He had interrupted one of the old man's meetings just because he'd been freaked out by a crazy lady.
This year he was determined that nothing would happen. He took the safest and fastest routes to school and back home again. He never tried to ditch his guard, like he had done before when he had gotten fed up with them following him around. He even cut back on the pranks. He kept his scope smaller: no more pranks in the wider village, he stuck to pranking the Academy during school hours. This year, he was going to hole up in his apartment for the entirety of October tenth and let the ANBU protect him. He promised the old man every year that he would stay clear of the remembrance festivities. Every year he ended up ignoring his promise a little in order to snoop around the festival. Not this year. This year he was playing it safe.
This year was going to be the first year that he wasn't going to get attacked on his birthday.
Sasuke scowled at the door for a long moment after Naruto scampered out of it. "What's his problem?" He grumbled. "I thought he'd want to go with the festival with me."
A large hand came down onto his head, resting gently atop his black spiky hair. "Don't be mad at Naruto." Itachi told him quietly. "October is always difficult for him."
Sasuke turned to stare at his brother accusingly. "You know something."
"Yes."
"What?"
"I can't tell you." Itachi said simply. "To do so would infringe upon the vows that I took when I became an ANBU agent."
Sasuke scowled at him. "I knew it was weird that Naruto's legal guardian was the Hokage." He said bluntly. "There is some big secret."
"I'm still not going to tell you."
Sasuke sighed. "I know." He pouted. "Can you at least give me a hint? He's my friend."
Itachi blinked at him, eyeing him curiously. "Well..." he was hesitant. "... I can tell you that Naruto isn't well liked by the rest of the village, and that sometimes he is targeted around this time every year."
"Why do they hate him?"
"Can't tell you that."
"Well... why do they target him now?"
"Can't really tell you that either." Itachi sighed. "Well... maybe..."
"What?" Sasuke demanded impatiently.
"... you could look at it in the way that the village thinks he's 'bad luck'." Itachi said.
"Why?"
"Do you know when Naruto-kun's birthday is?"
"Huh?" Sasuke scowled again. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"October tenth."
Sasuke froze, blinking up at his brother. Itachi met his gaze with an icy one of his own.
"Don't ever repeat anything that I told you here, Sasuke." Itachi said firmly. "I may not have told you much of anything, but even telling you Naruto's birthday is edging a little too close to breaking some very important village laws." His hand was firm on top of Sasuke's head. "I told you what I could, because I believe that you should know as Naruto's friend." Itachi mussed his hair gently. "Don't let me down little brother."
Then Itachi left him, standing staring at the door wondering just how deep the mysteries surrounding Naruto Uzumaki went.
A/N:
Sooooo... this update took a bit longer. Sorry about that. I initially started out thinking that I would try and update this story every week, but I hit writer's block about mid-way through this chapter and I couldn't shake it off. Add to that I had a bunch of assignments due last week as well, and the chapter ended up delayed. To be honest, the main reason that I had writer's block is that I realised that I really only planned the fic up until the point where Sasuke meets Naruto at the market, and I had no idea where to go next. It didn't seem right to end it at the market, so I sat down an planned out the rest of the story properly. Now that I know where I'm going, hopefully I can go back to once a week updates (no promises...)! This chapter is long, and I think it ended up a bit of an interlude, but I'm still hope that you guys liked it. Look forward to the next chapter, things are starting to happen!