The day hadn't gone as Sasuke had planned. People had figured out who he was pretty quickly—or, more importantly, they had figured out who his family was; the Uchiha name carried a lot of authority and power after all—and had been staring and pointing at him, just gossiping all damn day.
And now this shit just had to happen. It had been raining for a while now and the parking lot had started to flood a little under the heavy onslaught. He stared blankly out at the pooling water and then flicked his eyes over to his Harley, which was safely tucked under the school's side awning. He'd seen the storm clouds rolling in after lunch and had gotten special permission to pull it under the covered outside lunch area before the weather got too bad. The problem lied in the fact that he couldn't get home safely with the roads and weather like this.
"Yo, teme!"
Sasuke held back a shudder at the voice, after first period he'd managed to get away from the annoying blonde for all of three seconds before the blonde had found him again. The dumbass then assumed that Sasuke had gotten lost in the stampede and practically plastered himself to Sasuke's side after that.
"Hey, bastard! I'm talking to you!" This time the blonde was right beside him when he bellowed and Sasuke couldn't stop the way he flinched or how his hands curled into fists. He really wanted to punch the annoying idiot in the face. Instead he turned to face the blonde with his most traumatizing glare he could muster but even that didn't faze the blonde in the least.
"What" Sasuke ground out when he realized the Earth wasn't going to split open and drag the other boy to Hell.
"I just thought I'd offer you a ride, since you were on your motorcycle," the blonde replied with a shrug. The informal way the blonde spoke grated on him like nails on a chalk board; even people in his extended family weren't that familiar with him.
Sasuke was about to tell the other to go to Hell, when the last seam that held the sky together completely bust and a tidal wave of rain crashed down accompanied by lightening streaks that could tear the sky in half and deafening rolls of thunder.
"Whatever," was his mentally edited reply.
"Wow, teme, don't make it sound like you're doing me a huge favor," Naruto snipped, "I just figured that you'd rather not drown on your way home."
Sasuke turned to glare at him but he paused when he realized the blonde was already wet. He didn't really care enough to ask why but his silent question was answered when the blonde pulled out a thick chain from his backpack and looped it around a pole and between the spokes of his front tire, locking his motorcycle to the building. Sasuke pursed his lips but turned away to make it clear to the blonde that he wasn't going to apologize or give the blonde praise for his generosity. The blonde rolled his eyes again and jerked a thumb in the direction of his truck.
"Well then, let's get going."
The next thing Sasuke knew, his hand was snatched up and he was being dragged through the rain by a sprinting idiot.
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Naruto threw open the door to his truck and scrambled in, laughing slightly when he turned to see a wet, glaring Sasuke doing the same; he would never, ever, say it out loud, but the sour, raven haired teen reminded him of a drowned cat at the moment. Instead he cranked the engine and turned down the ear-splitting volume of his radio. He was slightly startled when his own voice floated through the air and briefly wondered which one of his asshole friends had managed to get into his truck to slide the CD into his player, he bet it was Kiba. He coughed and turned the volume down a little more but otherwise let the music play.
"Love is a Killer" thumped through his speakers and he quickly changed the track, hoping that the other didn't know enough about 80's metal bands to know that it was that a chick song. Though the original was sang by a woman the cover that was playing in his truck was him singing and he really didn't want the raven haired boy to know that yet. He was slightly relieved when the other didn't ask and that, when the next song that came on, was slightly more masculine. Naruto couldn't help but sing along to it, "Your Love" was one of his favorite songs.
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Sasuke watched the other bob his head and sing out of the corner of his eye. One tan hand gently guided the large orange monster he was riding in through the flooding streets while the other rested on a denim covered thigh, tapping out the beat of the song.
The blonde was pretty good, not that he'd admit it under pain of death. A treacherous voice in his head whispered that the blonde was more than good—he had the voice of an angel.
The blonde glanced at him "Which way from here?"
Sasuke pointed to the left "A few more miles that way and you'll come up to cast iron gates, those are the gates to my house."
"Oh, shit!" the blond exclaimed, looking at him briefly with large eyes "You're fucking rich!"
Sasuke snorted, did the blonde seriously live under a rock? How could he not know who the Uchihas were?
He blinked at the thought. If the blonde didn't know who he was, then the idiot actually wanted to be his friend. What the hell was wrong with the blondes head?
He 'hned' in response to the blonde's exclamation and continued to mull the questions over in his mind.
The blonde snorted at his lack of any real response, "Modest, aren't you bastard," Naruto teased lightly.
"Well, at least you didn't say something like," he dropped his voice low in an attempt to mimic Sasuke, "'my parents are rich, not me.'"
Sasuke rolled his eyes but had to bite back a chuckled at the blonde's friendly teasing.
Maybe he just might give the blonde a chance, see if the boy really was as honest as he seemed; and if he wasn't, Sasuke would beat the hell out of him. Sasuke didn't like liars or people that tried to make a fool of him.
Sasuke looked up to see that they were in front of the gates of his house.
"You really are an idiot," Sasuke said, "Roll down your window and push the button on the speaker box."
Naruto did what he was told and Sasuke leaned over him.
"Kakashi, open the gates."
"Of course Sasuke."
Sasuke twitched; he could almost hear the lazy unsaid 'your highness' jibe in Kakashi's tone.
The raven sat back and listened to the blonde softly sing to the song that was playing. He blinked when he realized that the blonde and the singer sounded the exact same and turned to study the blonde before asking "Is that you singing?"
The blonde blushed and nodded "Yeah, me and a few of my friends play local gigs, and we decided to record a demo so if people wanted to know we sounded like we could give them the CD instead of making unnecessary 'audition' trips."
Sasuke hummed and leaned back in the seat once more as Naruto made the long journey up the winding driveway.
The blonde pulled to a stop in front of his house and turned to watch Sasuke get out. Said raven pulled his backpack over his shoulder and turned toward his house, only to be stopped by a tanned hand on his shoulder. He turned to look back at the blonde who was leaning across the seat, CD in hand.
"Here, I've got more."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow, silently asking the blonde why he thought Sasuke would want it.
The blonde shrugged as if reading Sasuke's mind "Give it to someone else if you don't want it, the more people who hear it, the better publicity we get, later!" The blonde said with a large grin and a wave of his hand.
Sasuke blinked as Naruto leaned across the seat and pulled the door shut. He stood there for a moment more to watch the blonde drive back towards the road before he headed inside, CD unconsciously gripped gently, but firmly, in his hand. Seeing what all was on the CD wouldn't hurt, especially since the blonde would never find out.
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A few weeks later found Sasuke lying on his bed reading a stupid book about controlling his anger and channeling his feelings into being a productive person or some shit as Naruto's voice lulled him into a sense of peace. If he wanted to admit it to himself—which he didn't, he was completely fine swimming in denial—he'd definitely been cultivating a small crush on the loud blonde since the moment the moron had crashed into him; flying curses and annoying voice (and breath taking blue eyes) and all.
It hadn't taken Sasuke long to realize that Naruto was kind of amazing in his own stupid ass way. He smiled at the smallest things and danced when he walked and he simply rolled his eyes and called Sasuke a bastard when the raven said mean things and it was kind of awesome in the lamest way possible but Sasuke was strangely okay with that.
So lost in his own musings Sasuke never realized that his older brother, Itachi, had been standing in his doorway for almost five minutes just quietly observing his brother.
"What's with the reading otouto?" Itachi asked, leaning against the doorjamb. Sasuke had thrown the book in the corner of his bedroom the day he'd received. He'd pursed his lips and politely informed their mother that he didn't need to read it as he didn't have anger problems.
"Naruto doesn't like fighting," Sasuke replied absently before his head snapped up at a breakneck pace and his eyes widened in disbelief that he'd said that out loud. He'd been too distracted by the book to fully register that someone had actually been talking to him.
Itachi raised an eyebrow "And who is Naruto?"
Sasuke looked down at the book and refused to answer. Itachi shrugged his shoulders and flipped open his phone.
"Kakashi," Itachi said into the phone, "I want you to find out who Naruto is."
He was just about to hang up when Kakashi replied "Uzumaki Naruto, seventeen years old, a junior in high school, lives with his adoptive father Iruka Umino—who is also the school's English teacher—grades are on the poor side, but apparently the boy is very artistic and plays rhythm guitar and acts as lead vocals in fairly popular local band. Overall the boy's school record paints him to be quite the amusing character."
Itachi hummed and looked back at his younger brother, who stared intently down at the book with a light, almost non-existent, blush painting his cheeks.
"Thank you Kakashi," the older Uchiha said into the phone before he snapped it shut with a flick of his fingers.
"So otouto, why are you trying to change for this boy, is it something required of you? Does he not like you the way you are?" Itachi asked, Sasuke had always been a firm believer in not changing himself for anything or anyone, but Itachi knew first crushes could be detrimental to one's health and values.
"I am." Sasuke said softly and closed the book. His eyes slipped shut and he let his head fall backwards against the bean bag he was sitting in.
"I am changing myself for him, but not because he demands it," he cracked an eye open and smiled at Itachi, just a quick twitch of the lips, "Naruto's the type of guy who either takes it or leaves it, but because he makes me want to be better."
Itachi blinked slightly, taken aback.
"He makes me want to pay attention in class so I can help him with the homework he doesn't understand, I want to control my temper because he's against violence and I think it frightens him, but he makes me want to protect him." Sasuke looked at the book's cover for a moment; brows furrowed "I'm not sure why I want to do any of this for him, he's loud and stupid but my God his smile is like the fucking sun."
Itachi chuckled, as smart as his genius brother was, he was oddly stupid at the same time, "You have a crush."
Sasuke blinked at Itachi before grabbing the remote to his stereo. He turned up the volume up so that he could drown Itachi and his words of absolute nonsense out.