Hello again, any heart attacks this time? It has only been a week, one day less to be exact really. I actually think I enjoy this more regulated and not-so-long updations (yes, I will use that not-a-word). I'm tired, can you tell? But I had to stay up to finish this chapter and pig out as much as I could before 12 midnight for I do not get to eat or drink caffeine or any other carbonated beverages for the next 30 hours (well, the next 29 hours, 39 minutes and 50 seconds to be exact). I am participating in the 30 Hour Famine, fun fun (it really is though, did it last year). And before I present the next chapter, I has another recommendation, Godchild by Kaoru Yuki. It is a wonderful manga with subtle hints of yaoiness that might escalate into not-so-subtle-yaoiness . And now... I hope you enjoy the read.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Concrete Angel

Chapter Fifteen:

"Little brother," Sasuke awoke in a sweating panic. Gasping for air he found his blankets had been kicked off, his shirt, shorts and hair were clinging to his sweaty body and he could not get his image out of his head. It was all that freak redhead's fault. His corruption of his Naruto was bringing back very unwanted memories that he'd hoped he'd locked away forever. Now the lock was broke...

He growled as he got out of bed, running his hand through his damp hair. Shower time.

That entire morning Sasuke was having flashbacks to the old days. Visions of his mother cooking breakfast in the kitchen, flashing her famous smile as he walked in the doorway. Hearing his father and brother arguing outside the hall about the police academy, his father was a very successful officer and his brother had been well on the way before his change of crowds. Putting on his shoes to leave the house was the most painful. He could see Itachi sitting down, putting on his own shoes, gesturing for Sasuke to come hither, and even though he knew what was to come he always obeyed, hoping for a hug or kiss or something. Then flick, right on his forehead. Sasuke could almost feel the ghost pain of his brother's annoying habit. He sighed deeply, blinking back tears as he headed out the door.

Walking down the road Sasuke could hear his family calling good morning. Uncles, aunts, cousins, everything running about, greeting him, wishing him a good day. He'd been quiet young at this time so he'd smile and run about with the other kids as he continued on his way.

It had been the hardest morning for him in quite some time...

Naruto awoke from a soft, comfortable, peaceful sleep to a happy morning. No noise, no violence, and friends there to greet him. Temari once again helped him with his make-up, Gaara watching intensely as she did so. Kankuro hung back, sketching designs to something. He was always drawing weird designs. Once Naruto got a glimpse of them and he could have sworn it was some demented puppet thing. As soon as he was ready they ate something, normally really strange and gross-looking foods that Gaara favored, then headed for school.

They always walked with Gaara in front, Naruto on his right, then Temari was directly behind him and Kankuro behind Gaara. It never changed. For a little while, the blonde thought it was odd but he grew accustomed to it and fell into the natural pattern of things with the group. They mostly lounged around, Gaara never talking; Temari and Kankuro either talking or arguing; and Naruto normally stayed quiet, sticking close to Gaara, and occasionally putting in a few words if what the other two were talking about applied to him.

However, it was the times that Gaara and Naruto spent alone that he didn't really get accustomed to. He was always nervous and hesitant, his body always trembled and his always found himself worried. He couldn't explain why, Gaara wouldn't hurt him, ever. He trusted him completely but when he let have control over his body...

His loud sigh brought the attention of all three Sabaku's upon him and he coughed awkwardly.

"Sup with you Uzumaki?" Temari rose her eyebrow with suspicion and her tone was of her usual nasty, superior attitude.

"N-nothing, sorry my mind was wandering." Naruto hastily spit out, trying desperately to think of an excuse so he didn't need to confess to Gaara what he was thinking.

"Where?" The redhead questioned, not sounding at all satisfied with this explanation.

"Uh... English, I was thinking that I need to get started on that essay we've got." Thankfully he actually remembered something that could pose as a plausible reason and it seemed to convince the group, or at least cause everyone but Gaara's gaze to stop boring into him.

Naruto swallowed the lump in his throat, but his heartbeat refused to slow as he kept his eyes averted from Gaara's general direction.

"Sasuke!" A hyper, happy female voice rang through the raven's ears, worsening his already painful headache. He scowled deeply and kept walking, not slowing down at all for the girl whom he knew was frantically sprinting to catch up with him. If anything he picked up his pace just to delay her arrival for even a few fractions of a second. He did not want to deal with his screeching fans today, he was far too stressed.

"Sasuke! Didn't you hear me calling you?" Sakura gasped as he ran up beside him, breathing heavily from jogging so fast. She must have started running as fast as she could as soon as she saw him, she was obsessed like that.

"No, must have been lost in thought." Sasuke lied in a monotone voice.

"Oh, well, do you wanna walk to school with me?" She asked sweetly, as though the fact that she was walking this way wasn't unusual. She only ever walked this way if the was planning on asking him to do something, or go somewhere with her. He suspected that she would attempt to walk this same route every morning if it wasn't so far from her own home. Sakura probably had to wake up an hour earlier than her everyday scheduled wake-up just to get to this point at the same time as him.

"Well we're already walking the same way." Sasuke stated, "As though I have a choice." He added in his mind in the same emotionless way he'd spoken.

"So..."

And so it began. Her almost innocent voiced laced with ulterior motives confirmed Sasuke's analysis.

"... are you going to the Junior Prom?"

And so also came a term the raven was unfamiliar with. From his knowledge coming into High School -and this was just knowledge passed onto him from people who actually cared about such things- there was only a prom for the graduate student.

"What's that?" He asked, knowing he'd regret it.

"It's a little party a few of us grade tens are throwing a week before the Senior Prom, just for us grade tens." She smiled proudly.

Must be one of the organizers, Sasuke thought before answering blatantly. "No."

Sakura was taken aback, disappointment showing clearly in her eyes at Sasuke's complete lack of interest. "But, why? It'll be fun!"

"No. Not my thing." He spoke simply, his eyes getting more sullen with every second. He didn't do dancing or social gatherings, especially things called "parties." And every time this girl spoke, she drove a nail of pain and irritation into his mind. Usually he could at least tolerate her annoyance but this morning...

"I'm not going, Sakura." He said firmly, dismissing any further pleading with his tone as he cut her off when she was just about to speak.

Sakura slowly closed her opened mouth, frowning sadly at her failure. She fell into a pace slightly slower than Sasuke's and kept quiet the whole walk to school.

F. A large red one smeared on the top of his math test. Blue eyes were wide in shock as his teacher, passing back the tests from two days ago, gave him a smug look. Normally when A-plus students received F's the teacher will be disappointed or worried, but to him... he was regarded as one of the slackers or skippers who always received bad grades so nothing else was expected. But his was the first F he'd ever received, hell it was the first time he'd gotten lower than a B.

He'd been so sure of his answers while he was writing the test... or at least, he thought he had been. Now that he recalled, his mind spent a lot of time focused on Gaara. Everything about the redhead intrigued him, usually it was in a negative way but he tried to ignore that factor and attempt to turn them positive.

Naruto sighed, tucking his test into his binder as the bell rang. It was just one test, it wouldn't hurt anything that he couldn't make up later. He stood, today not bothering to wait for everyone else to leave like he used to do. Instead he just walked out, bumping past his peers as they fled into the hall.

People started at him in the hallways, as always, but now instead of ignoring them or feeling ashamed, he felt angry. He found himself returning their stares and glares with dark glares of his own.

Gaara had, quite frequently after school, prompted the blonde to let his rage out. He'd yell out all his frustrations as he punched pillows and furniture, being told it was completely healthy, and each time he wanted to lash out more and more, to real people. Like Gaara told him, it wasn't his fault he was like this, Emi and the villagers were the ones at fault. So he directed his anger, which he'd kept so tightly and securely bottled up, at those who really deserved it. He wasn't violent of course. Naruto was not a violent person and after being abused for so long and so extensively, he couldn't even explain the remorse, guilt, sorrow, pain and other complicated emotions he'd feel at inflicting that sort of harm upon someone else. If he did that... he would think just like everyone else, and not be able to consider himself a human being.

Eventually the pillow punching would allow him to unleash all his locked-up anger and then he wouldn't need to be thinking of any thoughts that could provoke him into becoming this non-human. Thoughts like taking a knife to Emi, torturing her and calling her useless, worthless and a horrible person, just as she'd done to him. Taking Kiba by the throat, choking him by the lake and throwing him into the calm water. Chucking a desk at Kurenai-sensei to see if that finally got her to call on him in class. Last night he'd had a short dream that he'd brought a gun to school. All of these dreams and thoughts shook him to his very core. Though he'd been hurt so much, these thoughts never really occurred to him before, though he figured it was just a part of his opening up process. In order to get rid of the rage he'd bottled, he'd have to feel it first. It was only a natural thing to assume.

At the bell, Sasuke put the pen he'd been using to copy the Biology notes into the pouch on his binder and after aligning his loose papers, he closed the binder as well so he could pack up. Everyone in the class had already packed up, everyone except himself and Shino that is. Shino was just placing his notebook into his bag as well, not looking up from his dark glasses.

Shino was an odd character, so silent and unsociable, but he didn't appear as though this personality was due to his suffering. He wasn't like Naruto or himself in that aspect, or at least it didn't seem to him that it was. He was just your ordinary, quiet, geeky-looking boy who was overly interested in insects.

"Uchiha," He was acknowledged as the bug-boy passed his desk, heading out the now empty doorway all the other students had charged out through.

"Aburame," Sasuke responded. It was strange. The more he thought about it, the harder it seemed that such opposites like Kiba and Shino could be such good friends, with the extremely shy Hinata right along with them.

Sasuke didn't really have a group of friends, he never really liked to be sociable and he avoided the whole "friend" concept after he was terrified into becoming close to anyone. But then Kiba Inuzuka came along and annoyed the hell out of him on a regular basis and it pretty much because a daily ritual for them to talk. With Kiba, other random people who he occasionally would talk to came and then just recently he acquired the, now stolen, friendship of Naruto Uzumaki. But of course he, Naruto and Kiba were nothing like how Kiba, Hinata and Shino were.

He wondered what Itachi's friends were liked. He remembered him having an extremely close friend whom he loved and spent an abundance of time with, but then he was found dead. Speculation arose that it was Itachi who killed him. But had that been his only long term friend, like Kiba was to Sasuke, or did he have his own small group of friends like Kiba had. Maybe, before the incident, he was one of those people who hung out in those large groups down in the lobby, or perhaps... he had been like Naruto... with no one, until one friend came along. Did he also have a Gaara?

Sasuke shook his head as he walked. His mind had not been so focused on his older brother in years, not since he'd suppressed those dreadful memories and "moved on." And with stupid, simple contemplations such as what type of friends his brother had possessed... it was utterly useless to think of these things, but Sasuke could not shake them away no matter how hard he tried.

Sasuke passed him in the hallway and was completely ignored by him up until the raven purposely brushed his arm against the blonde's. This evoked a confused, questioning and slightly annoyed look from those blue eyes he gazed longingly into. Sasuke own eyes reflected an almost hurt and sad quality that a person would have when they missed someone.

But it was a moment that didn't last long. Their eyes disconnected and each walked their separate ways. Sasuke, however, stopped after a few steps to look back and watch his friend's back with sorrowful eyes. Bad things happen in three's, that's what his mother always told him. First he found Naruto at the bottom of his basement steps, then Gaara corrupted and stole away what he'd attempted to save... what was number three?

Hehe don't you love when I end chapters like this .