Sometimes, Sasuke wished he had murdered Naruto when they were twelve. It would have saved him the torment of what would follow when they were seventeen.
Of course, Naruto didn't see it as torment, because Naruto was a mutant demon spawn born from some flaming infernal realm. Naruto wasn't normal. That was why he insisted on making Sasuke suffer like this.
The demon beside him belched and patted his bloated stomach. "Another bowl of ramen for me, 'n' another one for Sakura-chan..."
Sakura cracked her knuckles at Naruto in a not-so-silent display of strength and aggression. It worked, because Naruto hurriedly changed tack.
"Ahaha, on second thought, maybe not for Sakura-chan! How about Kakashi-sensei?"
Kakashi stuck his head in a copy of Icha Icha Paradise, smiled winningly, and hopped out of Ichiraku and into the pouring rain.
"Sorry, Naruto, I have to get going! I have...Hokage duties to attend to!"
That was nonsense. Sasuke had observed him performing "Hokage duties," and had endured a tortured explanation as to why the eighty-seventh page of Icha Icha Paradise was of great importance to world affairs. The man whom he called a teacher.
"I also have to leave," Sakura announced. "There's someone in the hospital. Her feet got caught in a windmill and I have to stitch them back on."
"I thought that her feet were fixed the day before yesterday – " Naruto began.
"Goodbye."
She too vanished into the pouring rain, leaving Sasuke all alone. He wished she didn't.
Naruto flashed all his pearly white teeth at the owners of Ichiraku. "Okay, that just leaves Sasuke then!"
The moron he had the misfortune to call a friend decided to order another bowl of ramen. And another. And another. And another. And another. It was twisted and unnatural.
Upon receiving the bill, Sasuke grit his teeth so hard that his molars cracked.
A lot of things had changed since Sasuke had last been in Konoha. A lot of things had stayed the same.
As annoying as Naruto was, as much as he hated paying for those ramen bills...things really weren't so bad.
As annoying as he was, Naruto was his friend. And his friend did mean well, even if he had strange ways of showing it.
Sasuke had gone rogue, joining forces with an evil snake man who had just destroyed the village and was conducting grotesque human experiments to become a vampiric immortal being. Following that, Sasuke had also joined a criminal organization wanted in all major nations and several minor ones. And following that, he had decided to massacre his old village and take over the world. He had laughed like a maniac and gave evil speeches while trying to murder his old friends, his new friends, and his enemies...so one thing that had changed was that his old classmates really didn't like him much anymore. They had (grudgingly) given him the benefit of the doubt, but that was altogether different from wanting to hang out with him in their spare time.
Sasuke couldn't blame them. The fog of hatred had clouded his eyes, and he had behaved despicably.
He was fine with the idea of wandering around the world to atone for his crimes, but this didn't stop Naruto from trying to use the power of friendship to fix things with his friends. He wanted all his "precious people" to get along.
That was one thing that had stayed the same.
Why he thought Sasuke might become friends with Shino or Tenten over a bowl of ramen, Sasuke didn't know. In fact, long-forgotten migraines from his early days on Team 7 were suddenly resurfacing with a vengeance.
Following Naruto's thought processes always hurt his brain.
Shino was picking at his ramen as though he would be sick at any moment. The guy had tried warning Naruto that strong, rich broths didn't agree with his stomach, but Naruto didn't listen. Meanwhile, Tenten was grinding her knife with a sharpener, glaring at either him or at Naruto – Sasuke was not sure.
He didn't blame them. Nor could he fault them for gritting their teeth as Naruto ordered bowl after bowl of ramen again...and again...and again. It was bound to grate on the nerves, and eventually someone somewhere would use Naruto's head for target practice if he didn't shut up about ramen and friendship and friendship over ramen and how ramen created friendship and how ramen was the embodiment of purity, love, friendship, and goodness.
Shino's bugs rose in an ominous cloud.
Naruto didn't notice until the other customers began screaming.
What was wrong with him?
Naruto wouldn't stop trying to arrange more playdates.
After the Shino and Tenten fiasco, he had apparently decided that what Sasuke needed was to just cycle through a dozen or so other people until he found someone he "clicked" with.
Sasuke wasn't clicking.
That hound Akamaru had almost bitten his remaining arm off.
Shikamaru had spent the time either scowling at him, scowling at the clouds, scowling at Naruto, scowling at the ramen shop owners, or scowling at his wallet (Naruto never paid his full share). It was, in his words, "troublesome."
Okay. Sasuke found it troublesome too.
His replacement Sai clearly had serious issues. What else was he supposed to make of all the creepy smiling and passive-aggressiveness?
Sasuke had nightmares about being seated between Naruto and Chouji.
"Okay, 'bout that ramen-eating contest, I asked Bushy Brows if he and – "
"No."
Ino had spent the whole time in Ichiraku sobbing. She had been very upset over what he had done while he was away from Konoha. What he had become.
That had hurt...a lot. More than the scowling and knife sharpening and lack of enthusiasm.
He wasn't expecting it from someone on Team 10, whom he had never been close to. Sure, he would regret to the end of his days his words to Kakashi, about how his old teacher was unworthy of the Sharingan. He would regret to his next life blowing Naruto's arm off. He would regret even in his next seven lives the cold stare he had given Sakura, the "You're annoying," the chirp of the Chidori aimed at her heart.
But...he had let Ino down. Sure, she had been annoying, and when they were both kids, she used to jump on him, tackling him with hugs every chance she got, and that had driven him mad.
But he had let her down.
She had believed in him. And he let her down.
Maybe he wasn't cut out for close friendships outside of Team 7.
"Sakura-chan..." Naruto whined. "What if Sasuke isn't cut out for close friendships outside of Team 7?"
Sasuke, of course, was in Naruto's living room, and able to hear every word. Naruto, of course, did not care. 'Loose cannon' was a mild description of his behavior.
Sakura, to his relief, thunked Naruto on the head for this comment. She did many things that relieved him, even though she would have been well within her rights to chime in and agree with Naruto.
"Sasuke-kun gets along fine with others!" she snapped. "Just the other day, I saw him giving his whole lunch to a stray cat and her kittens."
Sasuke burnt his tongue on the tea that Naruto had boiled to one thousand degrees.
Sakura had seen him?
Of course she had. She'd seen him when he never wanted to be seen, heard him when no one else cared to listen. Of course Sakura would read too much into every side-glance and twitch of his mouth.
She had always been far too gracious in her assessments of him.
"Of course it was easy for him to make friends with cats," Naruto said, crossing his arms, rolling his eyes, and scowling. "All you have to do is to point at them and say 'Hn.' I meant human friends, ya know?"
"You know, I can still use Chidori with my remaining arm, you idiot."
"Yeah? Well, I can use Rasengan with – "
"Both of you, shut up," Sakura said. "Sasuke-kun, please appreciate Naruto's attempts to help you. Naruto, please stop being so overbearing and signing Sasuke-kun up for things he doesn't want."
Sasuke's lips twitched a fraction of a second.
Sakura noticed. She would notice.
He always did have a healthy respect for Sakura's potential now come to fruition.
"Now...Sasuke-kun, you absolutely do not have to eat ramen with Guy-sensei or Lee-san, but Naruto is right. You should make friends with our old classmates. Didn't we go through hell together? They've changed a lot in the last three years. I'm sure you could get along with at least a few of them."
He met her eyes with a hint of desperation lurking in their depths. No way would she tell him to pay off all of Chouji's bills –
"Have you met Hyuuga Hinata lately?"
Sasuke's memories of Hinata were few, fleeting, and far between.
It wasn't like she went out of her way to be noticed, back when they had all been kids. In fact she went out of her way to be as invisible as possible, hiding somewhere in the back of the classroom and jumping and flinching whenever someone addressed her, as though she were a deer expecting to be shot.
Why had she such little faith in herself, he didn't know. Not that he had paid much attention to her.
...Not that he had paid much attention to anyone.
His mind flashed back to Ino, annoying and clingy and far too much in his face, leaping onto his back to 'greet' him during the Chuunin Exams, oblivious to the irritation on his brow. Yet she had cried and cried and cried when he had been declared a fugitive from the law, according to Sakura. And she had cried and cried and cried when Naruto had set up that stupid ramen get-together thing.
You know, Sasuke-kun, said a voice in his mind, a voice that was calm and bold and cheerful and untainted. A voice that sounded, for some reason, like Sakura. This world's so big and wide. Even with that Sharingan of yours, there was a whole universe you didn't pay attention to.
A whole universe. Huh.
Against his will, his lone hand went up to his forehead, his fingers pressing dead-center above his eyebrows.
His lips twitched just a fraction.
Interesting.
He didn't know what to expect of the universe surrounding Hyuuga Hinata. He knew she was on Team 8. He had forgotten that Team 8 specialized in tracking until Akamaru tried to chew his arm off.
Maybe, Sasuke thought, tracking suited Hyuuga Hinata because she had the ability to sit still for hours and vanish into the woodwork, leaving people scarcely aware that she was there. She had been shy and gloomy and if he remembered correctly, she had suffered from a stutter in her youth.
The next weekend at Ichiraku, Sasuke walked in on her consuming at least thirty bowls of ramen, an insensate Naruto at her side.
He stared.
She noticed, her cheeks turning molten ruby red.
"Ah, good evening, Sasuke-kun. I'm sorry to, um...impose?" She spared Naruto a not-unconcerned side glance. His face was the curdled color of spoilt milk.
"He'll be fine," Sasuke said.
The more he examined the scene, the stranger and stranger it got. Naruto, it seemed, had finally bitten off ten times more than he could chew. Were Naruto a lesser mortal, Sasuke would have called for help, seeing such an acute case of food poisoning or whatever he had done to his stomach...but this was Naruto, host of a super powerful demon fox that could presumably detox his body. He could handle it.
No, what was baffling to his eyes were the neat stacks...and stacks...and stacks...of ramen bowls. By his estimation, there were at least seventy of them, and from the feverish way Teuchi and Ayame were bustling in the kitchen, there were more to come.
There was no way that this was all from Naruto's order. He was a hitherto unheard of supernatural mutant demon spawn, but even he had limits.
Hinata tapped her index fingers together.
"Erm, sorry to bother you like this, Sasuke-kun, but Naruto-kun was bored of waiting during this...ramen friendship meeting, so he challenged me to an eating contest..."
Naruto was truly the stupidest person he had ever met.
"...But the thing is, Naruto-kun lost..."
Sasuke stared some more.
"...And would you mind terribly if we called Sakura-san? He seems sick...Sasuke-kun? Are you feeling all right? Sasuke-kun?"
Naruto...
Lost a ramen-eating contest.
To Hyuuga Hinata of all people.
Pain knifed through his eyes.
What twisted universe had he missed out on while off seeking vengeance?
The Sakura in his mind had been right. A vibrant universe had been pulsing just beyond the reach of the Mangekyo Sharingan, and he had been unaware of it for years and years and years.
Hyuuga Hinata was the strangest of the friends Naruto had hoped he would make. She wasn't as self-abasing as he had remembered, but she still spoke in a too-soft voice, was needlessly apologetic, and had a habit of poking her fingers here and there during the many pauses and lulls in their conversation.
And yet, she had broken Naruto's ramen-eating record. She had broken the Akimichi ramen-eating record. Those peasants couldn't make it to bowl number thirty, whereas Hinata was merrily steaming along on bowl number fifty, with no distended belly, no signs of exhaustion, and therefore no end in sight.
And best of all, Naruto was unconscious for this particular ramen-eating friendship gathering, and when Naruto was unconscious, the conversation flowed quite well, if he did say so himself.
After the initial pause as he digested the carnage of seventy ramen bowls, he and Hinata had a look at Naruto's vital signs with their respective dojutsu and, after observing the rapid healing, had concluded that Kurama really knew his stuff.
"Say, Sasuke-kun," she had said after they propped up Naruto in a corner of Ichiraku. "If you don't mind...could you explain the correlation between the tomoe in your Sharingan and your chakra flow? I was reading an old scroll the other day about when the Sharingan and Byakugan diverged..."
It was like taking a nice warm shower after a blistering cold day.
Finally, someone besides Sakura who was intelligent and didn't hate him.
The afternoon wore on and he found himself in a surprisingly engaging discussion about the entire Ootsutsuki family lineage to Hinata, his fighting techniques, her fighting techniques, and the disadvantages of close-range combat against long-range.
"You should improve your long-range combat skills. Such as with swordfighting," he found himself saying.
"You really think so, Sasuke-kun? I warn you, I have little aptitude for it."
"You could always learn," he objected. "If this moron could" – he jerked his head at a presently drooling Naruto – "then so could you."
He was walking to Sakura's house close to midnight when he stopped and stared into the distance. Naruto's plan was working.
Interesting.
The Hyuuga clan exclusively specialized in hand-to-hand combat, and while Hinata knew how to handle kunai and shuriken, he wasn't expecting her to pick up swordfighting too fast.
He was wrong.
Yes, it was true that Hyuuga Hinata was not what would be considered a precocious genius – that title had been reserved for her late cousin. Yes, it was true that she held the sword with a certain flat-footed awkwardness that was neither gentle nor elegant. But there was a saying that the white belt was the most dangerous belt.
Three seconds into swordfighting practice, Hinata had almost disemboweled him. She narrowly missed his torso and (thankfully) hit the training dummy, sending straw stuffing flying into Sasuke's face.
She wasn't supposed to do that until lesson three.
"Um...sorry, Sasuke-kun. I told you, I'm no good at this sort of thing." Hinata twiddled her thumbs, which was not advisable when holding a sword. She somehow managed to graze the tips of his fingers in her sudden bout of dangerous timidity.
Sasuke said nothing, a smile twitching at his lips.
Interesting.
"Why not channel more aggression into your stance?" he suggested on the day of lesson three, the day she was supposed to have disemboweled her practice dummy, early bloomer that she surprisingly was.
"But...isn't aggression wrong?"
"Most of the time, it's not ideal," he admitted. "But sometimes, you should have fighting spirit, so that you can win."
Hinata gave him a look.
Figured. She probably threw matches on purpose so that no one's feelings got hurt. She seemed to be that kind of softie. He understood now.
She was a matching pair with Naruto and his 'let's all become friends with Sasuke even though he tried to kill you all in the past! If we eat ramen together, we'll become best friends!'
The counterpart to Naruto befriending Gaara, befriending enemy Kage, befriending enemy nations...
His mind flashed back to that fateful mission to the Land of Waves, with Naruto befriending a hardened mercenary killer like Zabuza of all people.
...Speaking of that, hadn't Hinata been on good terms with her own cousin after he tried to murder her?
No wonder she seemed to have had no objection to Naruto's ramen friendship session bullshit. Hinata in all likelihood agreed with him that it was a splendid idea.
Perhaps this was why she, and only she, of all of his old classmates, was the one to speak to him in a normal, friendly tone in Ichiraku, as though he had merely gone on a three-year-long grocery shopping trip and had come back with delectable, exotic fruits and vegetables.
He would need a new method here.
Hmmm.
"Do you have someone precious you want to protect? Be strong for that person."
Magic words.
It was fascinating. Hinata went from clumsiness to assassin-level grace and deadliness within minutes. That poor straw dummy.
He would get her started on channeling her chakra into the blade next. This was fun.
It was with a gratifying thrill that he realized that Hinata had Fire and Lightning Release, just like he did.
"Where are you going?" Naruto asked one afternoon at the usual place of torment he had forced upon Sasuke. His eyes were narrowed, as though he suspected Sasuke of running off to declare war again, fight someone, electrocute someone, or steal someone's eyeballs. So annoying.
"I have things to do," Sasuke said vaguely, rising from his cracked stool.
"What things? Sasuke, the next time you need an eye check-up, just ask Sakura-chan. Violence isn't the answer, ya know? Don't unscrew anyone's eyeballs – OWWW!"
He would not be paying for Naruto's ramen again. Ever.
His and Hinata's training session that day incorporated explosives, lightning strikes, his own special technique of Chidori Nagashi, and her own special technique of Juuho Soushiken.
Naruto had provided more than enough aggression for him to channel.
Naruto didn't know when, why, or how it had happened, but lately, it was getting tougher and tougher for him to spend time with Sasuke or Hinata. He'd asked them both to have ramen with him to make up for when he collapsed and didn't get to introduce them to each other.
Sasuke had flatly refused. Big surprise.
Still, that didn't mean that he couldn't eat ramen with Hinata. So why was she avoiding him? She had always been quite eager to spend time with him in Ichiraku. It was true that she would burn with a fierce fever whenever he asked (funny girl), but she never refused. Hinata loved ramen.
Until now. Suddenly she was refusing all over the place.
He had taken to lying in wait for her in front of her house, just for the opportune moment to drag her off to go eat a million bowls of ramen together, but no.
"Ah, Naruto-kun, thank you for the offer," she had said yesterday. "But I will be quite busy today."
Naruto's face had wilted. "Then...tomorrow?"
She shook her head. "I'll be busy tomorrow as well."
"The day after?"
"I'm going out to have lunch with my teammates. I'm very sorry, Naruto-kun. Maybe next week?"
Next week she was busy again.
Naruto grit his teeth so hard his molars cracked.
"Wow, someone's jealous," Sakura said the week that Hinata was busy...which was every week. She seemed kind of annoyed that he had burst in while she was performing an important surgery – who knew that so many people needed their feet stitched back on?
But...what was he supposed to do besides bother Sakura at the hospital anyway? Kakashi-sensei had "Hokage duties," by which he meant he was attending an Icha Icha book club meeting. Team Guy was on a mission, Team 10 did not want to get ramen with him, and he couldn't find Hinata lately, and what was the point in inviting Team 8 to Ichiraku if Hinata wasn't with them?
"I'm not jealous! I just – I just wanted to introduce Hinata to Sasuke!" He crossed his arms and pouted, an expression which may have been cute when Naruto was twelve, but not when he was seventeen.
"Why? Hinata already knows Sasuke-kun." Was Naruto really that oblivious to Sasuke's newfound enthusiasm for teaching Hinata swordfighting? It wasn't a secret. Hinata was a good student, Sasuke was a good teacher and together, they had managed to inflict massive damage to Training Ground 3 just a few days ago. Sasuke had been quite pleased when Hinata had combined her Juuho Soushiken with that sword she had taken to carrying around. Even Tenten was eyeing her progress with envy.
Sakura had to admit...as stupid as the ramen friendship sessions were, they had definitely worked.
Naruto scrunched his brows together, exercising what little grey matter was present in his skull to solve this conundrum.
"Well, if Hinata already knows Sasuke, and Hinata doesn't want to meet him..."
He gasped in horror.
"Do you think...Sasuke hates Hinata? Hinata hates Sasuke?"
Sakura massaged her unfortunate hurting brain.
"...What?" How did he come to such conclusions?
"I knew it!" He slammed his fist into his palm. "Hinata hates Sasuke from the bottom of her heart and didn't tell me because she doesn't want to hurt my feelings! Right, Sakura-chan? Will Sasuke go renegade again and declare war?"
Sakura channeled a huge amount of chakra into her knuckles.
Time for emergency brain surgery on Naruto.
Naruto rubbed the swollen lump on his head, courtesy of Sakura's "emergency brain surgery."
Sakura made it clear that Hinata did not hate Sasuke, Sasuke was not trying to take over the world again ("why would you think that, idiot?"), and nor did Hinata just start hating ramen after he had been incapacitated upon foolishly challenging her to a contest.
So why were they both avoiding him?
The crisp, cool morning mist. The pale wispy clouds. The morning sun rays warming his back.
The mother cat ran up to him, her tail waving like a flag in the wind. Her kittens followed, meowing, circling his legs and pawing at his toes.
He allowed himself a rare smile as he set a lunch box on the ground.
The kittens swarmed over the food, pushing each other out of the way, wrestling, and squealing with great gusto. The mother cat sat next to him, her throat rumbling with purrs.
These were his mornings in Konoha. Coming back had not been a mistake.
"Thought I'd find you here," said a voice that was calm and bold and cheerful and untainted. Sakura's voice.
"Thought you'd been following me."
He could have stopped smiling, but he didn't.
Sakura didn't stop smiling either. He hoped she would never stop. It was the least he could do to make her smile, after all she had suffered.
"So...I heard that Hinata has started combining her Hyuuga techniques with that sword."
"She is promising. She reminds me of Naruto. A less annoying Naruto," he clarified, in response to her raised eyebrows.
"Ah. Yeah, she's much less annoying than he is. Speaking of, you've made him jealous."
Sasuke waited. She did not disappoint.
"All your swordfighting lessons with Hinata. He doesn't know where she's vanishing. He thinks she's avoiding him."
"She appears to be in love with that idiot. She obviously isn't avoiding him."
The first thing he noticed about Hyuuga Hinata was that the precious person she wanted to be strong for was Naruto. The second thing he noticed was that Naruto didn't notice.
Sakura rolled her eyes.
"Anyway, just keep an eye out. I dunno what he's thinking, but it's definitely something stupid."
What Naruto thought was so stupid that it made other stupid people look smart. Few had such talents. He of course decided to corner Hinata soon after one of her bi-weekly practice sessions with Sasuke.
He scowled, crossed his arms, and sniffed the air around her like Akamaru, oblivious to how such actions would be perceived by her.
"You've been so sweaty lately, Hinata!" he proclaimed just in case she hadn't been humiliated enough.
"I – "
"Must be from a workout."
"I – "
"Hinata, you look so feverish."
"I don't – "
"Do you have a rare illness? Is that why you've been avoiding me?"
"No, I – "
"C'mon, is it that time of the month? Let's get you to Sakura-chan! Hinata, why are you swaying like that...? Hinata!"
Everyone in earshot shuddered with pity for the poor girl.
"You...went up to Hyuuga Hinata, claimed that she was sweating a lot, asked her if she had a rare illness, and then if she was going through 'that time of the month'," Sasuke said as soon as Naruto burst into the hospital with his incredibly silly explanation. "And you don't understand why she became this way."
Naruto shook his head, eyes brimming with tears. "What's wrong with her?"
"You're so dull that donkeys are intelligent beside you."
"I don't know, Sasuke-kun," Sakura piped up. "I think Tonton has him beaten in the intelligence department."
So far, Naruto had been wrong about all his theories, namely those involving Hinata hating Sasuke, Sasuke hating Hinata, Hinata hating ramen, Sasuke trying to take over the world again, and Hinata having a rare illness that caused her to avoid him.
Left to his own devices, what other twisted ideas would he come up with?
"He's probably going to accuse you of two-timing me with Hinata next," Sakura said after kicking Naruto out of the hospital. She dipped a cloth in water, squeezed the excess moisture out, and placed it on an unconscious Hinata's forehead.
Poor Hinata.
"There's no way anyone could be that stupid."
"Naruto tried to defeat Kaguya with Reverse Harem Jutsu."
It didn't make sense. None of it made sense. He had been inviting Sasuke and Hinata for ramen, and they never bothered to show up. Well, maybe Sasuke had shown up that first time. He didn't remember because he tried to eat more than thirty bowls of ramen in one sitting.
But the time after that and the time after that too! How many times did she have 'stuff to do'? Stuff that seemed to make her sweaty, breathless, and feverish?
Come to think of it...he had never seen Sasuke and Hinata in the same place! That didn't mean they hadn't been in the same place, but it did mean that they were hiding something from him!
Why would they ever hide from him? His two precious people?
Naruto's mind leapt from one deranged, tortured explanation to the next, not from A to B as normal minds went, but from A to G to V to S, with no rhyme, reason, logic, rationality, or any of the good stuff that kept brains running.
He hit upon one truly nonsensical explanation and almost keeled over. What else made sense, if Hinata didn't hate Sasuke, Sasuke didn't hate Hinata, Hinata didn't hate ramen, Sasuke wasn't trying to take over the world again, and Hinata didn't have a rare illness that caused her to avoid him?
Sasuke is two-timing Sakura-chan with Hinata.
He went speeding off in search of that punk Sasuke, his blood boiling so much it evaporated.
Just so you know, Kurama piped up, usually silent but now suddenly growing a conscience and trying to put the brakes on this bout of foolishness. I think you're making a big mistake here.
Naruto didn't listen.
Hinata was making brilliant progress on channeling her chakra through the sword. She had a knack for it. Sasuke had only shown her his trick with Chidori Nagashi a handful of times and she had picked up with the speed of lightning, her blade shrouded with the flickering mane of a lion.
Naruto chose that moment to spring from some infernal realm and wage war on Sasuke.
He sighed as Naruto charged at him in full Kyuubi mode, a smoking crater in his wake.
"I...I can't believe you!" Naruto bellowed, cracking his fingers with his single thumb in a gesture that told Sasuke that he had been practicing it to look 'cool' or 'threatening' or some such nonsense. "I – you – you – and – Hinata – "
"Could you please speak in complete sentences," he deadpanned. "I can't magically read your mind, dumbass."
This served only to enrage the fool further. His teeth gained almost fang-like qualities and the whisker markings on his cheeks shifted to something wild and fierce.
A pool of dark energy coalesced in his hand.
He was really going to blow up the training ground. Because –
"You – you two-timer! Leading Sakura-chan AND Hinata on! I'm gonna kill you!"
...That made no sense whatsoever.
But then, Sakura had warned him to expect this.
"Um...Naruto-kun?" Hinata piped up. "Sasuke-kun isn't – "
"Hinata is SUCH a nice, sweet girl! Can't believe you'd lead her on like that, you – "
God, what was wrong with Naruto's malfunctioning brain?
"Naruto-kun, we're just – "
"TAKE THIS! MY LAVA-STYLE RASEN – "
Hinata applied a firm finger to a strategic point on his shoulder. It worked. Naruto's shoulder sagged like a sack of soggy potatoes. Sasuke's appreciation of her spiked sky-high.
"Naruto-kun," she said, holding his gaze with a hint of iron, and Sasuke couldn't believe that she had ever been a timid young lady. "Sasuke-kun is simply my friend. He offered to teach me swordfighting. There's nothing more to it."
Naruto blinked at her with wide sky blue eyes.
"You – and Sasuke – are friends?"
He asked this like, you and Sasuke are from Mars?
"Yes," she said.
Sasuke did not dispute the description. Naruto's eyes put dinner plates to shame.
"Holy shit," he breathed. "Sasuke...you made friends outside of Team 7?"
"Hn. Don't sound so surprised. She is decent company."
This was a terrible mistake, because suddenly he and Hinata were seized by an inescapable energy, endowed with the force of a gravitational wave. Their skulls all collided in a migraine-inducing godforsaken Naruto-style friendship group hug.
"I'M SO HAPPY, YA KNOW? MY TWO PRECIOUS PEOPLE GETTIN' ALONG SO WELL – "
"Naruto-kun – " Hinata choked. Her face was a poisonous multicolored shade found only in toxic waste disposals. Sasuke didn't know if it was because of her close proximity to Naruto or if, more plausibly, it was the result of oxygen deprivation.
"You know what this calls for?"
Goddamn it.
"Naruto, let go, you – "
He didn't.
"RAMEN."
"I don't want any."
"I'll pay for it all, okay?"
"No one asked you to."
Of course Naruto would finally release them from prison only to drag them off to another one.
Although...
He had seen Hyuuga Hinata eat, and Ichiraku definitely wasn't a prison for her.
His lips twitched.
The universe surrounding Hyuuga Hinata was fascinating indeed.
It took Naruto a while to leave, but when he did, it was just Sasuke and his new...friend.
He had some outside of Team 7.
Interesting.
"Sasuke-kun?"
He turned around. Hyuuga Hinata caught his eye. His lips twitched.
Her lips twitched too.
Thank you.
A/N: Title comes from kilandra-mordea! Thanks for the idea! :) This is my first time writing Sasuke's POV and SasuSaku at that. This was written solely to explain why Hinata was carrying a sword in the Narutop99 illustration. Hope I did well! Tell me what you think! :)
