Disclaimer: I don't own.
I had decided to change the course of the story. I didn't quite liked how it was going the more I thought about it.
X-X-X
"Here, have a drink." Sasuke looked up, seeing him with a glass of water in his hand. He reached out hesitantly, avoiding the gaze of the other as he took the drink in his hand. It was warm. Sasuke took a small sip before pressing both of his palms against the cup to heat himself up. He had just took his medicine, and the pain had greatly settled down.
Naruto sat down beside him on the cosy sofa, "Feeling better?"
Sasuke stared at the small ripples on the surface of the water as he gave a small nod. He could not bring himself to look at Naruto straight in the eye. He was always unable to whenever he allowed himself to let the other see his times of weakness. Although Naruto had witnessed such incidents before, much to Sasuke's exasperation, does not mean he could tolerate to let anyone see him in such a frail state. Especially by him. The raven personally did not know why the blond irked him so much. He would always give others the cold shoulders, and nobody could riled up as much emotions within him as the person situated beside him. There was always an unfathomable feeling within Sasuke whenever he sees Naruto. It made him highly uncomfortable. He did not liked it. Not one bit.
He opted to disregard his question and scanned the living room instead, looking at the mess his father had made. Well, at least he was out again. Sasuke could not bring himself to imagine the amount of distress he would have to suffer if his father was still at home. Naruto knew his father's abusive ways towards him, and knowing his short fuse temperament, he would knee the old man in the guts if he saw him in person. Sasuke would never ever want to deal with the troubles that would brew if it really occurred.
The faint rustling of a plastic bag broke him out of his stupor as Naruto placed an onigiri on his thighs. "Have some. I just bought it from the convenience store. You are lucky I felt like eating this and not cup noodles today."
Sasuke half hurled it back, "I don't want it."
"Don't be stupid. I bet you have not eaten anything since morning, didn't you? Or else your condition wouldn't have gotten this bad. You even skipped break in school today." The blond then pushed the poor, abused rice ball into Sasuke's hand that he had grabbed unceremoniously, "Eat, before I shoved it down your throat."
The raven yanked his hand out of his grip and snared, "Don't you have other places to be instead of butting into my business? It's annoying."
"Hey! What's with your god damn attitude?! Who was the one who could not even stand straight just now? You could have died in the cold if you had fainted there."
"Stop being such a nosy-parker. I don't need your help."
"Fine! You could go off somewhere to rot and die for all I care!" Naruto stormed out of the house in rage, slamming the door shut as the thin wall vibrated with the impact.
Sasuke could feel his chest tightened with guilt as he listened on to the heavy footsteps that were growing softer and softer outside, before all went silent. A chokingly heavy fog of emptiness engulfed him as he turned his body to gaze deadpan at the onigiri that had fell onto the filthy floor. He got up from his seat and picked it up, only noticing now that it did not have a tag that indicated it was bought from a store. Sasuke could feel his chest constricting even more as a realisation dawned on him.
Naruto had made it himself.
Peeling off the saran wrap with a very heavy heart, he took a bite.
It tasted better than he had thought.
X-X-X
"Stupid bastard. Asshole. Dickhead." Naruto cursed fumingly under his breath. Ungrateful little shit don't deserve his effort. He grumpily kicked the pitiable can that was unfortunately in the way of the currently fuming blond. It flew a good distance down the pathway, bouncing off the ground a couple of times before rolling to a stop near a trashcan. This did little for Naruto to curb the anger that was still brewing strongly within him. Although this was not the first time Sasuke had been a thorough stinking bastard that deserved a punch to his face, repaying him with shits; Naruto just could not leave him alone. He knew the raven, for some peculiar but undeniably hurtful reasons, hated his presence. Sasuke always acted like a cat that had its fur standing on ends whenever Naruto approached him. However, this never deter his want of helping him whenever he could.
Naruto knew of Sasuke's predicament, of his abusive father and his tough living conditions. Although Sasuke never spoke a word, he knew he was financially unstable and was always short on money. The raven had to take up two part-time job in order to feed both him and his good for nothing father. The useless man stayed unemployed, only getting himself drunk and in troubles in which Sasuke has to personally drag him out of sometimes. Despite everything the old man has done to him since he was just a child, he knew Sasuke still cared for him, although Naruto could never understand why.
Naruto always had the slight suspicion that the raven never retaliated when his father lashed out at him. There were a couple of instances where he came to school with bruises all over his body. He knew about the bruises only when he accidentally stumbled upon Sasuke undressing his bandages secretly in the empty locker room. He was shirtless, and Naruto could see black, blue and red painted all over his body. He had burst right into the room, slightly startling the other before his stunned expression was quickly replaced by an enraged one, and questioned how the hell did he allow himself to sustain so many of them. Until today, Sasuke never answered him, and Naruto never probed again. It was eerily disturbing imagining him remaining still and taking whatever abuse his father delivered, but all he could do is to keep an eye on the other's condition and sometimes help him tend to his wounds, despite Sasuke's more than obvious infuriation of Naruto putting his nose into somewhere it did not belong.
Although their relationship was far from friendly and harmonious, Naruto could never imagine losing Sasuke in his life. He treated him like a close friend, a brother even. A bond he could never bear to lose. Until now, he still could not grasp the reason why was he so adamant in helping Sasuke when the other apparently did not want it. Just that he have the feeling both of them were in fact very similar, despite the huge difference in their clashing personalities. Sasuke had once said that they were like oil and water, but Naruto somehow feel that they were wind and fire. With both of them together, they could become powerful and achieve something. Although Naruto was still unsure what that something would be.
Naruto shook his head, using his palms to slap his cheeks to pull himself out of his train of thoughts. He better hurry home. The night was getting colder.
X-X-X
He stepped into the classroom, ignoring all the distasteful side-glances aimed towards him as whispers went around the room. Sasuke was already used to this. He hang his bag on the small hook at the side of his table and retrieved his math textbook and his pencil case. Flipping to the page indicated by a post-it note, he begun working on the remaining sums that he had left uncompleted. He had wanted to continue them yesterday after work, but his body and mind was too exhausted to do so. He glanced up to the clock; at least he still have fifteen minutes to work on them before class starts. It was more than enough time for him.
Something hit his shoulder as a soft thud was heard. He disregarded it, scribbling down the last formula on the paper that finally concluded the question he was working on. He moved to take his calculator into his hand as another paper ball hit him, this time accompanied by a mocking snicker. "Yo, sorry dude, I was aiming for the trash can. Won't you mind picking them up and throw it for me?" The trash can was at the upper right corner of the room, far from where Sasuke was situated. He was already immune to this type of small trick, and gave him the cold shoulder; this type of people don't deserve his time.
"Oi, I'm talking to you, asshole. You deaf or something?" A shadow cast over his table as a fist dropped to his table, sending out a loud 'bang' that resonated throughout the room. The chattering in the room went silent as heads turned to look at them. Sasuke remained stoic, having experience these many times before. "What's with the look in your eyes? HUH?!" He then proceeded to grab Sasuke's collar, pulling him up and leaned in closer to his face, snarling at him. Sasuke was about to knee him in the guts when he saw a blurred fist meet the other's jaws, and he was sent crashing into neighbouring tables that screeched in protest.
The raven whipped his head to the side, and a panting blond, with a highly irate look on his face, was glaring incessantly at the boy that fell onto the ground. The other shouted out a curse, bringing an arm to wipe the blood at the corner of his lips.
"What in the world is happening here?!" A middle-aged man's voice bellowed. Some classmates must have ran out to call a teacher for help before things escalated. Nobody dared to speak a word and Sasuke was the first to break the silence, "Keiji was picking a fight with me. Naruto was only defending me." Sasuke knew if he did not explain the situation first, Naruto would look like the one that had started the fight.
"Is it true Haruno-San?" Iruka-Sensei questioned the pink-haired class president beside him and she gave a firm nod. "The three of you, follow me to the office."
X-X-X
"Gahhh! Why must we do something like this?!" Naruto whined for the umpteenth time in the past hour, swiping the brush across the floor with all his strength to vent his frustration. Sasuke rolled his eyes, growing increasingly frustrated listening to the endless complaints the other had. "We didn't do anything wrong!" He bent down, pushing his butt into the air and slide the brush along the tiled floor with his toes propelling him forward. Sasuke could hear him grumbling non-stop as he moved, but he chose not to waste his breath, instead concentrating on his task to scrub the sinks clean until they sparkled. Well, at least that's what Iruka-Sensei wanted.
Naruto stood up, wiping the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand as he turned to look at Sasuke, "How the hell can you just accept this punishment?"
"Would you had preferred if Iruka-Sensei had taken us to the principal instead?" He never once looked at the squawking blond, turning on the tap and rinsed the brush that had accumulated much dirt, "anyway, you should be happy it was Keiji and not us that have to clean up the backyard. That place is horrible."
Sasuke went back to work, "let's finish this quickly and head for dinner." Hearing Sasuke's invitation, Naruto brightened up considerably.
"Don't you have work?"
"Today is my off-day," Sasuke paused for a little while, "by the way… sorry about yesterday." It was soft, nearly inaudible, but he knew Naruto heard it all too well. He could see him broke into a grin at the corner of his eyes, pleasantly surprised as he never expected something like this from the raven.
"It's alright man, I had long forgotten what happened yesterday."
Sasuke hang his head low, his hair covering his face as his cheeks gradually heated up. It felt really weird and awkward apologising to Naruto. He then contemplated whether should he thank him for the onigiri yesterday. He quickly pushed away the thought; it already took a lot of him to apologise.
It was better to leave it at that.